LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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TJNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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Questions of the Heart. 



HOW REASON HELPS FAITH TO 
ANSWER THEM. 



BY 



HENRY TUCKLEY, 

Author of " Life's Golden Morning," " Under the Queen," Etc. 



« » 

« » 



" Come now, and let tis reason together." 

" Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you 
reason of the hope that is in you." 



CINCINNATI : CRANSTON & CURTS. 



NEW YORK : HUNT & EATON. 
1892. 



V/VCtX 



K- 



Copyright 

By CRANSTON & CURTS, 

1892. 



r? 



ci 






In Memory 

of pleasant years, delightful fellowship, and 

profitable study together of great 

and inspiring themes, 

I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME, 

as a parting tribute of affec- 
tion to my 

H. T. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE 



r I A HE great themes treated in this volume have 
■** been called " Questions of the Heart," be- 
cause they are questions in which every human 
heart is deeply interested, and because it is only as 
human beings approximate to a solution of these 
problems that their hearts can enjoy any real con- 
tentment. In one sense, the topics might have 
been called, with equal propriety, " Questions of 
the Head;" and this fact has been kept conscien- 
tiously in view in our treatment of them. Our ap- 
peals have been made, not to the emotions, but to 
the calm tribunal of the intellect. The great need 
at the present day is not for more feeling upon 
these topics, but for clearer vision with reference 
to them. This need we have recognized, and our 
effort has been to satisfy and gratify the heart by 
clearing and enlightening the mind. The founda- 
tions of human faith have been examined; and 
while, of course, the light of Scripture has been 
our chief guide, we have purposely followed, when- 

3 



4 Preface. 

ever we could do so with safety, the light afforded 
by nature and common sense; and it has been a 
constant occasion of surprise to us, iu pursuing our 
arguments, to find how perfectly the light reflected 
from these different sources has harmonized, and 
how strongly, upon so many of the great essentials, 
Christian faith is fortified by human reason. 

Our treatment of these great themes will hardly 
be profound enough to please the trained theolo- 
gian. Nor have we flattered ourselves that the 
arguments offered will bring conviction to the con- 
firmed skeptic. The book, however, was not written 
for such individuals as these. It is put forth in the 
interest of that numerous class — embracing the vast 
majority in all Christian communities — who know 
comparatively little about systematic theology, but 
who are, nevertheless, as far from being skeptics 
as they are from being accomplished divines. 
Amongst these there are many who believe with- 
out knowing why they believe, and many others 
who are not able to believe so fully as they desire 
to do, simply from the fact that their information is 
so limited. To such persons, perplexed as they 
must so often be by these great questions of the 
heart, this book comes for the special purpose of 
showing them, as its title indicates, how reason 



Preface. 5 

helps faith to answer these questions. To the 
young it is offered as an instructor and guide; to 
the suffering and bereaved, as a comforter; and to 
all honest inquirers after the truth, be they young 
or old, prosperous or unfortunate, as the effort of 
an honest mind to solve for them in the most reas- 
onable manner possible some of the great problems 

of life and destiny. 

HENRY TUCKLEY. 



CONTENTS 



I. 
THE BIBLE. 

Page. 

What Proof have we that it is the Word of 

God? 13 

I. Self-evident Truths which make a Revelation from 

God Necessary, 17 

II. The Argument from Miracles, 21 

III. The Great Miracle of Historic Christianity, .... 26 

IV. The Argument from Prophesy, 30 

V. Objections considered, 34 

VI. Some Corroborative Proofs, 41 

II. 
IMMORTALITY. 

HOW DO WE KNOW THAT THERE IS A FUTURE LlFE ? 47 

I. Immortality argued from the Faculties and Aspi- 
rations of Man, 51 

II. Proofs from History and Analogy, 59 

III. Man too Noble to be Only a Mortal, . 64 

IV. The Song of the Human Heart, 68 

V. From the Bird to the Book, 72 

VI. An Answer to Ingersoll, 75 



8 Contents. 

hi. 

HEAVENLY RECOGNITION. 

Page. 

What Assurance have wb that we shall know 

One Another in Heaven ? 79 

I. Recognition argued in a Story, 81 

II. The Story applied, 85 

III. Recognition argued from the Nature of Man, ... 88 

IV. Recognition Necessary to Our Heavenly Contentment, 94 
V. The Larger View of Revelation, 98 

VI. Practical Conclusions, 102 

IV. 

THE RESURRECTION. 

What do we know about the Resurrection of 

the Dead ? 109 

I. Suggestions from the Realm of Nature, Ill 

II. From Daybreak to Noontide, 11G 

III. With what Body shall we be raised? 121 

IV. Difficulties considered, 125. 

V. Some Interesting Questions answered, 131 

VI. Comforting and Wholesome Lessons, 135 

V. 
THE PROBLEM OF SUFFERING. 
Ie god is Love, why does He allow Good People 

TO SUFFER? 141 

I. A Calm Review of Fundamental Facts, 145 

II. Suffering as a Factor in Human Development, . . 153 

III. Utility of Suffering in the Work of Salvation, . . 158 

IV. How Suffering magnifies the Divine Mercy, . . . 163 

V. Viewing the Problem in the Light of Eternity, . . 167 
VI. Concluding Observations, 170 



Contents. 9 

VI. 

THE UNPARDONABLE SIN. 

Page. 

Is there a Sin which hath never Forgiveness? . 175 

I. Is an Unpardonable Sin Possible? 177 

II. Is Such a Sin Possible at the Present Day? .... 181 

III. In what does the Unpardonable Sin consist ? . . . . 185 

IV. How may we know whether or not we have com- 

mitted this Sin ? 189 

V. What Classes are most liable to commit this Sin ? . 191 

VII. 

GUARDIAN ANGELS. 

What may we reasonably believe wtth Respect 

to Such Beings ? 197 

I. Current Opinions Respecting Angels, 201 

II. Angelic Activity in Human Affairs, 204 

III. Angelic Guardianship fully established, 209 

IV. The Doctrine elaborated and applied, 215 

V. Some Interesting Speculations, 220 

VI. Practical Lessons 224 

VIII. 

FALLEN ANGELS. 

What is their Influence upon Mankind? .... 229 

I. The History of Fallen Angels, 235 

II. Occupation and Probable Influence of Fallen Spirits, 240 

III. Conjectures as to their Number and Appearance, . 246 

IV. What we know of their Methods 249 

V. Admonitions and Encouragements, 254 



I. 

The Bible. 

WHAT PROOF HAVE WE THAT IT IS THE WORD 
OF GOD? 



" We have not followed cunningly devised fables." 

—2 Peter i, 16. 

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." 

—2 Timothy hi, 16. 



THE BIBLE. 



What Proof have we that it is the Word of 
God? 



w 



HEN Paul declares, in his letter to Timothy, 
that " all Scripture is given by inspiration of 
God," he alludes solely to Old Testament Scripture. 
But if the Old Testament was inspired, the New 
Testament must certainly have been ; that, too, in 
the same way, and from the same source. These two 
books stand or fall together. They are the neces- 
sary complement of each other. The Old Testament 
is not complete without the New, and the New 
would not be intelligible were it dissevered from the 
Old. One is the introduction, the other the finale 
and grand consummation ; and each makes an equal 
claim to be accepted as an inspired book. 

These Scriptures, moreover, claim inspiration of 
a peculiar kind. There are those who tell us that 
the great poets were inspired in a sense, and they 
would have us believe that it is in this sense alone 

that the contributors to the Bible were inspired. 

13 



14 The Bible. 

But look at the difference in the claims set up in the 
two cases. The claim of Biblical writers is that they 
"spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," 
and that what they say is, in substance, what God 
says. Is any such claim as this made by Shake- 
speare, by Milton, by Dante, by Tennyson, or by 
Longfellow? On the contrary, these men claim to 
be only what they obviously are; viz., lesser lights 
in the firmament of knowledge, who borrow their 
radiance from another and greater light. How 
significant that Shakespeare's writings contain over 
five hundred allusions to Scripture, and that not 
one of his thirty-seven plays should be without such 
an allusion ; while, as to the masterpieces of Dante 
and Milton, these, as every one is well aware, not 
content with mere allusions to the Bible, are a pal- 
pable effort, however mistaken in its results, to em- 
body and illustrate the sublime teachings of that 
book. 

We do not hold, however, that every word of the 
Bible is inspired. What we mean by inspiration is 
that such a divine influence was brought to bear 
upon the minds of Scriptural authors that they 
were prevented from writing what was erroneous, 
and were enlightened and guided with reference to 
matters of which otherwise they would have been 



The Word of God. 15 

ignorant, and that, as the result, they correctly and 
sufficiently voice to us the will of God concerning 
our highest welfare. This is what we mean by in- 
spiration ; and that the authors of the Bible were 
indeed inspired to at least this extent is not merely 
the belief of the Christian Church, but it is the 
claim of the Bible itself. 

Either, therefore, this Bible is the word of God, 
or it is a fraud. We can not judge of it as of other 
books, because it makes higher pretensions than 
other books. Call it a book of morals, and we 
reply, if it is only a sublime treatise on morals, it is 
a sublime example of a lack of morals, because it 
claims to be more than that. To put the case briefly 
and plainly, if the Bible is not the word of God, it 
comes to us with a lie upon its pages, and is, there- 
fore, utterly discredited for any wholesome purpose 
whatever. 

But are we to accept this book as the word of 
God merely upon its own claim to this distinction ? 
Not at all; and it would be an insult to human in- 
telligence to expect such a thing. People talk about 
accepting the Bible on faith ; but if they mean by 
this, a faith Avhich has no reasons behind it, then, we 
repeat, not only that this is not expected, but that 
such a requirement would be an outrage upon human 
intelligence. 2 



16 The Bible. 

No, my friends, we do not accept the Bible as the 
word of God' upon faith, we accept it as such upon 
valid and sufficient evidence. The world sits in judg- 
ment upon this book. It has done so for hundreds 
of years. The claim of the book to a divine origin 
is passed under review. Testimony is given, proofs 
are adduced, objections are raised and answered. 
This trial scene has been enacted before every gen- 
eration since the book appeared, and again and 
again has the verdict been given — not a verdict 
based on blind faith, as some have foolishly supposed, 
but a verdict based upon evidence. Men have said — 
as they have had, and still have, a perfect right to 
say — here is a book which claims to be different 
from every other book, and superior to every other 
book ; a book which assumes to voice for humanity 
the will of God, and which, on the strength of this 
claim, demands from mankind implicit obedience to 
its precepts. What proof is there that the claim of 
this book to be divine is a valid one? In a word, 
as the question has been put for our special consider- 
ation at this time, "What assurance have we that 
the Bible is the word of God?" 

It would, of course, be impossible to answer this 
question fully within the limits of a single chapter. 
All we can offer is the merest outline of such an 
answer as the question deserves. 



Self-Evident Truths. 17 



I. 

Self-Evident Truths which make a Revelation 
from God Necessary. 

We begin with the existence of God. That there 
is a Being of infinite intelligence, who created all 
things, and to whom all intelligent creatures are 
responsible, is shown by the universal intuition we 
have of such a Being, as well as by the fact that we 
can not account satisfactorily, upon any other the- 
ory, either for our own existence or the existence 
of the world in which we dwell. And the same 
things which prove that God exists, prove also that 
his predominent trait is goodness ; while still another 
self-evident truth — a truth proclaimed in ten thou- 
sand ways, independently of the Bible — is, that the 
chief solicitude of the great Creator is for his 
creature, mau ; that he created man for noble ends, 
and that his desire concerning him is that he shall 
be happy. 

A further self-evident truth is, that the happi- 
ness of man depends upon his character and con- 
duct. It was not necessary for the Bible to tell us 
this. The fact was known long before the Bible 
was extant, and it is known and felt at this day in 



18 The Bible, 

places where the light of the Bible has not yet 
been diffused. That certain states of mind produce 
happiness, and that certain courses of conduct have 
the same effect ; and that, on the other hand, the 
opposite states and actions just as surely bring mis- 
ery and punishment in their train, — these are things 
which men have known since they have known 
anything. Evidently, therefore, if men were to be 
the happy beings which it is clear Almighty 
God desired them to be, they must have some in- 
fallible rule for their guidance — some law telling 
them distinctly what would be for their good and 
what would not be for their good. 

But where were they to find such a law? That 
human opinions would not be accepted as an infal- 
lible rule of conduct is evident from the fact that 
these opinions are so contradictory, and have va- 
ried so in different countries and ages. It is evident, 
moreover, that reason and philosophy were incapa- 
ble of supplying this need. To see the best that 
philosophy can do for men, we have but to look at 
Greece and Rome. But would any one admit that a 
beneficent God had in view, when he created the world 
and placed man upon it, no higher forms of morality 
than the low sensualism of the Grecian and Roman 
eras, and no better religion than that of organism ? 



Self-Evident Truths. 19 

If, then, an infallible rule of conduct was nec- 
essary to man's happiness, and if, as we have seen, 
man's own resources were insufficient to supply 
such a rule, what course was left to the God who 
had created man, and who had designed him to be 
both happy and virtuous, but to himself speak to 
his creatures on these great matters? Really, if 
there was a God, as all nature proclaimed, and if 
he was good, as all his other works proved him to 
be, we can not conceive how he could be silent 
under such circumstances, any more than we can 
conceive how a loving father could be indifferent 
to an appeal for help and guidance from his feeble, 
erring, and imperiled offspring. 

Such is the line of argument, briefly stated, by 
which, altogether aside from the Bible, it is shown 
to be entirely probable, and indeed morally cer- 
tain, that somewhere, in some way, and at some 
time, God would reveal his will to mankind. 

Admitting this, where shall we look for such a 
revelation ? There ought to be a divinely inspired 
book somewhere — where is it? We can not con- 
ceive that the great Father would thrust us into 
the wilderness of this world, and leave us to make 
our way without some guide-book; but where is 
that guide-book ? He would surely send us some 



20 The Bible. 

word, write us some letter, while we were far from 
home wandering amid dangers — where is that letter? 
Now, we make a bold affirmation. We feel 
warranted in declaring that if the Bible is not the 
word of God, no book in the universe can aspire 
to that distinction. This is the testimony of both 
the friends of the Bible and its foes ; and the very 
best proof that the Bible has no competitor as a 
revelation from God — none that is worthy of seri- 
ous attention — is shown in the fact that both infi- 
delity and rationalism have made this book their 
sole battle-ground. Other books are passed by as 
being beneath notice. Believers and unbelievers 
in all ages — no less in this most intelligent age than 
in those which preceded it — have united in declar- 
ing that, as regards the question of a revelation 
from God, it is either the Bible or nothing ; either 
this light or total darkness. Because, therefore, we 
can not reasonably believe ourselves to have been 
left in total darkness, and because, if the Bible be 
not the true light, there is no light from heaven 
for human guidance, it Avould seem to be the most 
natural thing in the world that we should approach 
the Bible, for the purpose of examining its claims, 
not only with no prejudice against it, but with a 
decided predilection in its favor. 



The Argument from Miracles. 21 



II. 
The Argument from Miracles. 

Look, now, at some of the proofs in the case. 
Those usually presented first are the proofs deduci- 
ble from miracles and prophecy. A miracle is an 
act or event wrought by the power of God in 
attestation of some person who claims to have been 
sent upon a divine mission ; and the argument from 
miracles is, that if a man claims to speak in the 
name of Omnipotence, and, in order to show that 
he does speak in that name, performs works which 
no power save the power of God could accomplish, 
that man substantiates his claim, and his word must 
be accepted as the word of Jehovah. But what 
proof have we, the reader will inquire, outside of 
the Bible itself — what proof have we that those 
who profess to voice to us in this book the will and 
word of God really performed miracles? 

Regarding the miracles wrought through Moses, 
which we may call the fundamental miracles of the 
Old Testament, there is evidence the most convinc- 
ing to the reality of some of these in the records 
and memorials of the land of Egypt. The very 
stones cry out in attestation of these occurrences ; 



22 The Bible. 

and scarcely a year passes in which archaeological 
research does not evoke some new word of testi- 
mony, and present before us out of the long-buried 
past some additional witness to the truth of God. 
If, however, we would have proof of the ve- 
racity and inspiration of the Old Testament, such 
as shall be palpable to our own senses, all we have 
to do is to look at the Jews in their present state 
of dispersion, and yet of miraculous preservation. 
How can you account for that marvelous race of 
people, excepting upon the supposition that they 
were the people of God and the original possessors 
of the word of God? Where is their history to be 
found if the Bible does not give it ? And if the 
history given of them in the Bible is a spurious 
history, which has been substituted for their true 
history, when was this substitution made ? How is 
it possible such a change could have been made 
without the world having, somewhere, some infor- 
mation of the fact? See, too, how this history re- 
flects upon the Jews, what ingratitude it charges 
upon them, and what judgments it records against 
them ! Can we conceive it possible this people 
would have clung to these records through all these 
ages, and would have kept themselves separate, 
solely through the influence of these records, from 



The Argument from Miracles. 23 

the other nations of the earth for nearly four 
thousand years, had there ever been the slightest 
ground for doubting that the records were au- 
thentic? And does it not follow from all this, 
even as we claim, that the Jewish race, with its 
traditions, its forms of worship, its clannishness — 
scattered as it is over the face of the globe, and 
yet, to a marvelous and really miraculous extent, 
keeping itself separate from all other races and 
peoples — is a palpable, living proof that the Bible 
is what it claims to be ; viz., the inspired word of 
God, and a faithful record of his dealings, first, with 
the chosen nation of Israel, and afterward, through 
that nation, with all the nations upon earth? 

In the New Testament the proof from miracles is 
greater even than in the Old. The miracles of 
Christ's time were performed in a more enlightened 
age than those wrought by Moses and the prophets. 
You will bear in mind, too, that they were heralded 
as miracles, and were received as such by the masses 
of the people. They were not performed in privacy. 
They were wrought on the public thoroughfares, in 
the synagogues, in the grave-yards. Thousands were 
witnesses to them; and had there been the least sus- 
picion of imposture, how easy it would have been to 
expose the fraud ! From the fact, however, that no 



24 THE Bible. 

exposure was attempted, how can we conclude other- 
wise than that no suspicion of the kind was enter- 
tained ? These miracles were proclaimed upon the 
house-tops. Men affirmed them in open court. 
They believed them so implicitly that they sacri- 
ficed their goods and even their lives to this faith. 
We must remember, too, that it was solely upon 
these miracles that the Christian religion appealed 
to the world for recognition ; and we must remem- 
ber, furthermore, that this appeal was first made in 
the city of Jerusalem, and that it was made there and 
in adjacent places continuously from the hour of 
Pentecost. There was no intermission. Had there 
been, people might have forgotten the occurrences, 
and thus might have been liable to deception in re- 
gard to them. But while those still lived who had 
seen these miracles ; while those still lived who had 
been the subjects of them; in the presence of the 
soldiers and the chief priests who had entered into a 
conspiracy to keep Jesus in the grave, and w r ho, after 
he had left it, had combined together to persuade 
the people that his body had been stolen ; under the 
very shadow of the cross on which Christ had died, 
and in the very teeth of the people who crucified 
him, his disciples stood up — a mere handful of 
them — men of no social position and no education 



The Argument from Miracles. 25 

worth mentioning, and boldly proclaimed that He 
whom the Jews had crucified and slain, Him had 
God raised up again and exalted to be a Prince and 
a Savior to give repentance and remission of sins. 
Now, had there been any reasonable ground for 
doubting these miracles upon which the disciples 
relied to prove the divine authority of their new 
religion, does any one imagine there would have 
been the least chauce of their making three thou- 
sand converts in one day — or three hundred, or 
thirty, or three, or any ? 



26 The Bible. 



III. 
The Great Miracle of Historic Christianity. 

If any one should insinuate that we are proving 
the genuineness of New Testament miracles from 
the New Testament itself, then we invite you to 
leave the New Testament for a moment, and to con- 
sider facts which are ascertainable elsewhere. And 
is it not established, from other sources than the 
Scriptures, that the apostles continued their work of 
propagating the new religion, and that finally nearly 
all of them became martyrs to this work? Do we 
not know, also, that when the first proclaimers of 
the gospel passed from the stage of action, others 
took their places, and that many of these likewise 
suffered martyrdom ? Do we not read of persecu- 
tions in those times which make the blood curdle ; 
and yet do we not see, rising up from the ashes of 
these martyrs, that Christian Church which has with- 
stood the storms of the centuries, and is to-day the 
joy of the whole earth? Now, can any one seri- 
ously believe that a faith founded upon an imposture 
could have become in three centuries the established 
religion of the Roman Empire; or, if we grant to 
such a faith that first remarkable triumph, is it con- 



Historic Christianity. 27 

ceivable that, with the increased enlightenment of 
succeeding ages, such a faith, with only a lie to sup- 
port it, could still have stood the test, and could 
have continued to win its triumphant way as this 
Christian faith has done ? 

Thus the strongest proof of the reality of New 
Testament miracles is that which we see with our 
own eyes this very day; viz., that magnificent, far- 
reaching, irrepressible, and indestructible institution, 
the Christian Church. No system of error could 
have survived and prospered amongst enlightened 
people as Christianity has done. A lie may flourish 
for a time, but only truth is eternal. Crush a lie 
to earth, and it will remain there ; but 

" Truth crushed to earth will rise again ; 
The eternal years of God are hers;" 

and most grandly does the history of Christian- 
ity demonstrate this. Voltaire boasted that in less 
than a hundred years Christianity would be swept 
from existence ; and O, how that brilliant old 
mocker would have raved had any one told him at 
that time that within a century his own printing- 
press would be used to print the Word of God, and 
his own house be occupied as a depot of the Geneva 
Bible Society ! This, however, is precisely what has 
occurred; and why is it? Why is it that men have 



28 The Bible, 

been unable to destroy or to seriously injure the 
Christian Church? Why is it that, whilst other 
systems have crumbled into decay, this Christian 
system has gathered new vigor from the advancing 
years, and is to-day the most vital and powerful 
force in all the affairs of civilized man ? Can we 
imagine that a career like this would have been pos- 
sible to Christianity had it been founded upon any- 
thing save the grandest and most enduring verities? 
Ah! Talleyrand was right in that memorable re- 
mark of his, and he spoke wiser than he knew. Le- 
paux, a member of the French Directory, had 
complained to him that the new religion they were 
seeking to foist upon France made little headway. 
"Not surprising," said Talleyrand, "not at all; it's 
no easy matter to introduce a new religion. But 
there 's one thing I would advise you to do/ 7 he said, 
" and then perhaps you might succeed." " What is 
it — what is it?" inquired Lepaux. "It is this," 
said Talleyrand. " Go and be crucified, and then be 
buried, and then rise again on the third day, and 
then go on working miracles, raising the dead and 
healing all manner of diseases and casting out 
devils; and then it is possible you may accomplish 
your end." Thus spake Talleyrand, and he was 
right ; for it was in the doing of things like these 



Historic Christianity. 29 

that Christ accomplished his end, the fact that the 
Christian system still lives and flourishes being the 
best possible proof that he really did perform these 
miracles, as Talleyrand himself evidently believed ; 
while the genuineness of the miracles proves con- 
clusively that both the New Testament and the Old 
Testament, since the two must of necessity stand or 
fall together, are what they claim to be, and that 
all Scripture is indeed given by inspiration of God. 
After this, the argument from prophecy is not 
necessary, excepting to corroborate that which has 
already been established. It is, however, equally 
conclusive of the inspiration of the Scriptures 
with that based on miracles. 



30 The Bible. 



IV. 
The Argument from Prophecy. 

We begin with the generally accepted axiom 
that no one can correctly foretell remote events 
that are contingent upon the actions of a large num- 
ber of people, save the omnipotent God. Any one 
may guess at events which are likely to transpire 
soon, and which involve the actions of one person, 
or even of several persons with whom they are 
well acquainted, and these guesses may come to 
pass. But you will see at once that there is a 
world of difference between predictions such as 
these, and predictions stretching far into the fu- 
ture — predictions foretelling in exact language the 
doom of great cities and nations, or the birth, with 
all its attendant circumstances, of some great ruler. 
So palpable, indeed, is this difference, that it is 
universally conceded, by all persons of good judg- 
ment, that no one can foretell with certainty events 
of the latter class, excepting that one Being whose 
eyes go to and fro throughout the whole earth, 
and whose prescience is so vast that he knows the 
end of all things equally with their beginnings. If, 
therefore, those are found who make such predic- 



Argument from Prophecy. 31 

tions as these, and who claim to make them under an 
inspiration from God, and if afterwards these pre- 
dictions shall be precisely fulfilled, what can be the 
conclusion respecting such persons but that their 
claim to divine inspiration is fully substantiated ? 

And to thus indicate the form of this argument 
is all that is necessary to establish the conclusion; 
for who does not kuow that repeatedly in the 
Scriptures events are foretold, as to time, place, cir- 
cumstances, and causes even — events which human 
discernment could not possibly have foreseen, and 
which could not possibly have been brought to pass 
by any imaginable collusion — events, indeed, the 
precise forecasting of which can only be accounted 
for upon the theory that those who made the fore- 
casts were divinely inspired ? Need we say that the 
ancient world is dotted with ruins, and that out of 
nearly all of these voices are appealing to us which 
unmistakably attest the fulfillment of Scriptural 
prophecy? The silent sphinxes and wasted temples 
of Egypt proclaim this. Babylon and Nineveh pro- 
claim it out of their awful desolations. Jerusalem, 
trodden 'neath the heel of the Gentiles, proclaims it 
in tones of sorrow and shame. The scattered na- 
tion of Israel proclaims it ; and this fact we would 

emphasize ; for if the marvelous preservation of the 

3 



32 The Bible. 

Jews as a distinct people is a miracle, and a proof 
of the genuineness of other miracles, then, with no 
less certainty, is the marvelous dispersion of this 
people, and the fearful persecutions they have suf- 
fered therefrom, a striking proof of the fulfillment 
of Scriptural prophecy. 

As to the predictions in regard to Christ, it is 
proverbial that these amounted almost to a complete 
history of the Savior's life. Hardly a circumstance 
is omitted. And when it is remembered that these 
predictions cover a period of two thousand years ; 
that they were uttered at remote distances from one 
another in point of time ; that they fell from the 
lips of men in various stations of life and of widely 
varying degrees of intelligence — when these things 
are remembered, together with the fact that all who 
spoke of the One that should come, presented him 
in essentially the same light, and that in the fullness 
of time the whole of these predictions were fulfilled 
even to the minutest particulars — when these facts 
are borne in mind, we shall surely be prepared to 
admit that the proof of the inspiration of the Scrip- 
tures which we thus derive from prophecy, like that 
previously deduced from miracles, is so complete 
and so perfectly conclusive as to leave the honest 



Argument from Prophecy. 33 

inquirer, not only without doubt, but without the 
least excuse for doubting. 

And yet there are other proofs. Really, many 
of the objections urged against the Bible are proofs 
that it is the word of God — presumptive proofs, at 
least, if not positive proofs. 



34 The Bible. 



V. 

Objections Considered. 

The question is sometimes asked: If God in- 
tended to reveal his will to men, and to show men 
the way of happiness, why did he not do it through 
one medium, in a set code of precepts all given at 
the same time ? To this we reply by asking, when 
was there a period prior to the completion of the 
New Testament when God could have revealed his 
will to men fully, with any hope of their under- 
standing it? The race had to be educated to re- 
ceive the final touches of revelation ; and that these 
were withheld none too long is shown by the fact 
they were but poorly apprehended, at first, by even 
the disciples of our Lord. 

Thus, what was thought to be an objection to 
the book is seen, upon closer examination, to be a 
fact which ought to increase our faith in it. 

Some one else says : If the Bible is the word ol 
God, why is there so much evil recorded in it? 
why does it detract from so many of its leading 
characters by telling so many bad things they did ? 

This objection we answer in the suggestive 
language of Dr. H. L. Hastings, of Boston, who 



Objections Considered. 35 

says : " Do you suppose that if the Bible had been 
written by some learned doctor, revised by a com- 
mittee of eminent divines, and published by some 
great religious society, we should have heard of 
Noah's drunkenness, of Abraham's deception, of 
Lot's disgrace, of Jacob's cheating, of Paul and 
Barnabas quarreling, or of Peter's lying and curs- 
ing? Not at all. The good men, when they came 
to such an incident, would have said: ' It is all 
passed and gone. It will not help anything, and 
it will only hurt the cause.' If such a commit- 
tee as this had prepared the Bible, you would have 
had a biography of men who were patterns of 
piety, instead of poor sinners. Sometimes a man 
writes his own diary, and happens to leave it so 
it is found by some one who prints it after he 
is dead; but he leaves out all the mean tricks 
he ever did, and puts in all the good deeds ; and 
you read the pages, filled with astonishment, and 
think, what a wonderfully good man he was! But 
when the Almighty writes a man's life he tells 
the truth about him; and there are not many 
persons who would want their lives printed if the 
Almighty were to write them." Thus is another ob- 
jection converted into a proof. 

But some one else says: If the Bible is the 



36 The Bible. 

word of God, why are there such great mysteries 
in it, so many things that are hard to understand? 
To this we reply : On the assumption that this 
book emanated from a divine mind, what else 
could be expected ? Why, if everything in the 
book were comprehensible by the human in- 
tellect, there would be ground for suspicion that 
the book was a product of that intellect. When, 
however, we find sublime mysteries in it, and 
yet discover, at the same time, that what is es- 
sential to human happiness is perfectly transparent 
and plain, we involuntarily say to ourselves, That 
is just what we should expect in a book coming 
from God. Besides, look at the mysteries there are 
in the material universe, and see how, through all 
the ages, men have been puzzling their brains, with 
only partial success, in the effort to solve these mys- 
teries. And if the book of nature presents so many 
difficulties, is it surprising we should find a few 
in the Book of Revelation, considering that both 
books emanate from the same Infinite Intelligence? 
But some other objector says: If the Bible is 
the word of God, why does it not agree with science? 
To which we reply: Why does not science agree 
with the Bible? Nay, more — why does not science 
agree with itself? This book announces principles 



Objections Considered. 37 

that are eternal, discoveries to which nothing can 
be added ; and because science seems, in its partial, 
twilight discoveries, to now and then pick up a fact 
which apparently does not tally with some of these, 
is that any reason why science should be allowed 
to turn upon the Bible, and ask contemptuously 
why the old book is so out of harmony with modern 
research? As reasonably might a tallow candle 
ask in derision why the white-faced moon emits a 
radiance so different from its own, or a dwarf stand 
before an athlete and ask why, if the other be a 
man, he was not made to harmonize in build with 
his own diminutive self. 

Ah, my friends, don't bring your tallow candles, 
lighted in the mines or in the observatory, and, 
placing them by the side of this blazing luminary 
from heaven, complain that the two are not in 
harmony — do n't be so unreasonable — but wait until 
you know a little more. Wait until the flickering 
lamp of science shall burn a little more steadily 
and brightly. One thing is undeniable, and that is, 
that if the Bible had agreed with the scientific con- 
clusions of former ages, it would have been alto- 
gether out of harmony with those of the present 
age. But the Bible, we must remind you again, 
is an eternal book, a book for all lands and all 



38 The Bible. 

times; and we submit, consequently, that it will be 
time enough to expect perfect agreement between 
its teachings and the teachings of science, when 
science shall have approximated a little more closely 
to the completion of her work. Nor have we any 
doubt that when that time shall have come, the lion 
and the lamb will lie down together in perfect 
peace. We venture to predict, too, that if either of 
the two is then found inside of the other, it will not 
be science that will have swallowed the Bible, but the 
Bible which will have gulped down and completely 
assimilated into itself the meek lamb of science. 

Still another objector says : If the Bible is the 
word of God, why does it have to be altered and 
revised from time to time? To which we respond, 
that it was thought necessary a few years ago to 
revise it in order to improve the translation, not to 
alter the original sense; and you must remember 
that while we hold that the book was inspired as 
originally given in the Hebrew and Greek, we do 
not claim at all, and have no grounds for claiming, 
that those who rendered it into English were in- 
spired, though we do believe that they were provi- 
dentially guided and most graciously helped. Be- 
cause the English language had changed, it was felt 
that some words and phrases in the Bible ought to 



Objections Considered. 39 

be changed, to make them express more accurately 
to this generation what was said in the original. 
Then, it was thought that new light had been dis- 
covered. An ancient manuscript had been un- 
earthed, and it was considered expedient to over- 
haul the Bible with the object of comparing it with 
that manuscript. Hence this work of revision was 
undertaken ; and we ask you to notice the results. 
We ask you to point out, if you can, a single 
doctrine of Christianity that has been overthrown or 
weakened; or a solitary change of any kind that 
has tended to discredit the Bible as the word of 
God. 

In point of fact, the revision of the Bible — so 
carefully and ably conducted, as it was, and yet 
leading to so few changes — has strengthened our 
faith in that book ; and this, no doubt, was what 
God had in view in providentially ordaining such 
a revision. It was God's way of showing what the 
Bible would stand — how much more it will stand 
than any ordinary book ; his way of demonstrating 
that the Bible is all right, and always has been so. 
Perhaps, too, he wanted to exhibit to the world, by 
means of a striking object-lesson, the wonderful 
popularity of the Bible ; and who will ever forget 
what took place when the Revised Version of the 



40 v The Bible. 

New Testament appeared ? Think of it — men offer- 
ing five hundred dollars for a copy of the book a 
little in advance of its publication ; the streets of 
New York in some quarters blockaded, the morning 
it was published, with express wagons waiting to 
deliver it; millions of copies ordered before it was 
out; and then, to crown the whole, and as an 
earnest of how the inventions of modern science 
are all finally to be pressed into the service of 
Christ, the whole of it — from the first of Matthew 
to the last of Romans — telegraphed from New York 
to Chicago, 118,000 words, the longest single mes- 
sage ever sent over the wires anywhere in the world ! 



Some Corroborative Proofs. 41 



VI. 
Some Corroborative Proofs. 

In further proof that the Bible is the word of 
God, we ask your attention to the faultless system 
of morals it presents us. Where else can such a 
system be found, or one even that is fit to be com- 
pared to it? What a paradise of blessedness this 
world would be if men only acted in their relations 
one with another as this book teaches they should 
act! We said at the beginning that if the Bible 
was only a sublime treatise on morals it was a 
fraud, because it professed to be more than that. 
We still say this. The fact, however, that its 
morals are sublime — more sublime, and more nearly 
approaching to our ideas of perfection, than those 
of any other book — proves that it must be superior 
in its authorship to other books ; and really this 
fact affords strong corroborative proof that it is the 
Divine Book which, from other evidence, we know 
it to be. 

It would seem, too, that we have a further proof 
of the divine authorship of the Bible in the mar- 
velous completeness with which it recognizes and re- 
lieves all the great wants of the great human family. 



42 The Bible. 

It was not necessary for this book to tell us that 
the human conscience is oppressed by guilt; this 
fact is made sufficiently real by the evidence of 
our own senses. The Bible, however, does affirm 
that we are guilty, and, happily, it tells at the 
same time how pardon may be obtained. Then, 
the sin which has involved us in guilt has also de- 
filed and polluted us. Not only are we wicked in 
practice, but we are evil by nature. We know 
this ; probably we should have known it had the 
Bible been silent upon the subject. The Bible, 
however, is not silent upon this matter. On the 
contrary, it recognizes and emphasizes this deprav- 
ity, and, what is equally suggestive of its divine 
authority, the remedy it offers for a nature steeped 
in sin is the only remedy which could meet such a 
condition ; viz., a nature created anew and purged 
from dead works to serve the living God. For our 
ignorance, it offers the wisdom of the Spirit ; for 
our weakness, the strength of the Spirit; for our 
sorrow, the comfort of the Spirit; and the fact that 
we are mortal it graciously provides against by 
bringing to light life and immortality. Thus this 
old Bible, like the most skillful of physicians, cor- 
rectly and fully diagnoses our condition, and then 
applies to our every ailment an all-sufficient rem- 



Some Corroborative Proofs. 43 

edy ; the diagnosis being so precise and the remedy 
so efficacious and perfect as to distinctly suggest 
that 'the inspiring source of a wisdom so vast and 
all-embracing could not have been the mind of 
man, but must have been that Mind which seeth and 
knoweth all things. 

And this brings us to our closing observation, 
which is, that one of our best assurances that the 
Bible is the word of God, is that which arises from 
experience. The argument upon this point was 
forcibly stated by that clear-headed Scotchman 
who said: "I know nothing about what the learned 
men call the external evidences of revelation, but 
I will tell you why I believe it to be from God : I 
have a most depraved and sinful nature, and, do 
what I will, I find I can not make myself holy. 
My friends can not do it for me, nor do I think all 
the angels in heaven could. One thing alone does 
it — the reading, and believiug what I read, in that 
blessed book. That does it. Now, as I know that 
God must be holy and a lover of holiness, and as I 
believe that book to be the only thing in creation 
that produces and increases holiness, I conclude 
that it is from God, and that he is the author of it." 

Yes, my friends, here is the best proof, the proof 
of experience. If any man will do his will, said 



44 The Bible. 

the Savior, he shall know of the doctrine whether 
it be of God. O, the countless multitudes who 
have found out in this way the truth of the Bible ! 
Every conversion is a proof that the Bible is the 
word of God. Every happy Christian life proves 
it. It is proven in the most sublime manner every 
time a dying believer goes to his final rest, with that 
pean upon his lips: " O grave, where is thy victory? 
O death, where is thy sting?" Thus, while a cele- 
brated infidel was compelled to say that the great 
bane of his life had been the fear he had that the 
Bible might not be false, we who believe it, and 
who have put its doctrines to the test, can bear 
testimony that the great joy of our lives is that we 
know it to be true, and are fully assured that it was 
given to man by the God of truth. 



II. 

Immortality. 

HOW DO WE KNOW THAT THERE IS A FUTURE 
LIFE? 



" If a man die, shall he live again?" 

—Job xiv, 14. 

" I shall not die but live, and declare the works of the Lord." 

—Psalm cxviii, 17. 



IMMORTALITY. 



HOW DO WE KNOW THAT THERE IS A FUTURE LIFE? 

"fF a man die, shall he live again ?" The ques- 
<*• tion of the ages ; a question which is as old as 
humanity and as new and interesting as the youngest 
child. Happily, too, it is a question to which an 
affirmative answer can be given. But how do we 
know it? How do we know that there \s a future 
life? 

For the present we may turn aside from the Bi- 
ble, and walk solely in the dim light of reason and 
nature. Your attention is asked to a beautiful spec- 
imen of the feathered tribe. It is caged, and the 
cage is in the sitting-room of an ordinary dwelling. 
Notice the brilliant plumage of the bird. You have 
seen many bright-winged songsters ; but did you 
ever see any quite so gorgeous as this appears to 
be? Listen, moreover, to its sweet warblings. You 
have heard the chirp of sparrows, the robin's soft 
call to its mate, and the notes of other songsters of 
the grove, but did you ever hear anything to equal 

4 47 



48 Immortality. 

those notes ? You will observe, too, that this feath- 
ered curiosity has ample wings, leaving you in no 
doubt that it could sustain itself in long flights and 
at a great altitude. Now, what are your conclusions 
in regard to this bird ? Because the bird is a rare 
one, you will find hanging from the cage a book 
which will tell you all about it. But as to certain 
elementary facts you do not need book-lore; your 
own common sense and powers of observation will 
meet the case. What, then, do you conclude in re- 
gard to this bird? 

Your first conclusion will be that it is an exile. 
That brilliant plumage, you will say, could never 
have acquired its touches of beauty and glory under 
skies so leaden and changeful as these. There is 
nothing like it here. The birds which wing their 
flight through the blue expanse in this latitude are 
of a different appearance altogether. And that song — 
it does n't at all harmonize with such surroundings 
as those in which you now hear it ; it speaks un- 
mistakably of the languid skies and fragrant bowers 
and dreamy atmosphere of the tropics. 

Not only is that bird an exile, but it is a pris- 
oner. Poorly does it brook confinement in a cage, 
or even in a dwelling. Notice how often its head 
is posed in an attitude of attention. What does this 



Is There a Future Life? 49 

mean, but that the caged songster would fain catch, 
if it could, above the uncongenial sounds within the 
house, some familiar warble of its own species from 
without? You will notice, too, how often its wings 
are used; and yet, in such a circumscribed space, 
how ungainly they look. Do you suppose such 
ample instruments of aerial locomotion would ever 
have been given to that creature had their only use 
been to lift it from the bottom of the cage to its 
perch near the top ? Observe, too, in still further 
proof that the bird is a prisoner and was not orig- 
inally intended for such close confinement, how 
anxious it seems to escape ! Why, it was but recently 
that the flesh at the root of its beak was bleeding; 
and why was this, but because, in its dreams of the 
larger liberty for which it was made, the poor pris- 
oner, forgetting that there were wires about it, would 
so often start off in vigorous flight, as though it must 
break away from its prison at any cost ? This much 
you learn respecting the bird simply from the exer- 
cise of your ordinary powers of observation and 
reason. 

Now you may take down the book, and get the 
particulars. You are convinced that the bird is an 
exile and a prisoner ; that it has faculties which fit 
it to live in better circumstances than those at pres- 



50 Immortality. 

ent surrounding it; you know that it must belong 
somewhere other than where it is. Now take down 
the book which has been provided for the informa- 
tion of visitors, and you shall know all about this 
feathered curiosity — whence it comes, what its hab- 
its, and what the full measure of its capabilities. 



Faculties and Aspirations of Man. 51 



I. 

Immortality Argued from the Faculties and 
Aspirations of Man. 

We speak in a parable. The caged bird is man. 
Look at man. Examine him critically as you did 
the bird. Use common sense in the scrutiny. Ask 
yourselves, first, What is there like him in all crea- 
tion? Observe the dominion he exercises over all 
other things — how he puts the world under tribute 
to his ambition. Observe how he reasons, plans, in- 
vents, creates, combines. Other creatures have in- 
stinct, but he evidently is endowed with something 
as far above instinct as the light of the sun excels 
the glimmer of the faintest star. Where, in all the 
visible creation, is his mate, his affinity — any being, 
with whom human beings can hold converse on 
terms of equality? And if there be no worthy 
companion for human beings among the intelligen- 
cies surrounding them in this world, does not that 
fact make it probable that their final communings 
will be with a higher order of intelligencies in 
another world? 

Then, put your ear to man's heart. Listen to his 
song. Did you ever hear anything like it? You 



52 Immortality. 

talk about the ten thousand voices that speak to you 
in nature, but what voice ever spoke in such sublime 
language as the voice of the human heart? They 
say that the sea-shell, if you put it to your ear, 
always voices in softened tones the mighty roar of 
old ocean. This may be only a fancy; and some 
may think it no more than a fancy when we say 
that the heart of man, in its great pulsations, voices 
to us the language of another world than that in 
which we are now living. But we ask you in all 
candor, as you press your ear against the human 
breast and listen to the singing of the mysterious 
warbler within, if you ever heard anything like it 
anywhere else on this earth? And in case yon 
never did, we ask further, if that fact does not af- 
ford a reasonable presumption that the song of the 
human heart is not earthly in its inspiration, but is 
an echo from the world invisible? 

We would have you notice, moreover, the su- 
perior faculties and aspirations which distinguish 
this caged bird of humanity, and how these, owing 
to the narrow confines of our earthly prison-house, 
are limited and thwarted. This human bird has 
wings. One of these is the love of life. To wish 
to live is natural ; to desire death is abnormal and 
morbid. We were started in existence with a 



Faculties and Aspirations of Man. 53 

strong propensity to continue. That hymn, " I 
would not live alway," would express a lie as re- 
gards the generality of mankind did it relate to life 
in the abstract. But it does not; it relates merely 
to the present form of life. Love of life is really 
one of the instincts of the human heart. It belongs 
to us by nature; we brought it with us into the 
world. More than that, most people manifest this 
love up to the latest moment of leaving the world. 
But what a mockery on the part of our Creator to 
have implanted within us a love of life so intense 
and irrepressible, had he nothing more in contem- 
plation for us than a brief period of existence in our 
present surroundings! For will any one pretend 
that this craving for life finds anything like a rea- 
sonable gratification in a world out of which three- 
fifths of those who enter it make their exit in 
infancy, and where the average stay can not be 
much more than thirty years — a world whose atmos- 
phere, as the poet has said, is "full of farewells to 
the dying, and of mournings for the dead?" 

Another bird-wing of our nature is the desire for 
perfect knowledge. There is that within us which 
impels us to do all we can to find out how things 
are, and why they are ; and yet what restraints there 
are upon us in the gratification of this impulse ! The 



54 Immortality, 

universe, for instance, — is not this to a large extent a 
book of mystery to us, and yet do we not feel that 
we ought to understand it? Not only so, but we 
can not help feeling that if our present material 
limitations were a little less rigorous, we should 
understand it. What does it mean, my friends, 
when we hear Isaac Newton declare, at the very 
summit of his scientific discoveries, that he has been 
but as a child picking up pebbles by the sea-shore, 
while the great ocean still lies before him wholly 
unexplored ? What does this mean, but that Newton 
in this world was a caged bird; that he was con- 
scious of a mind which fitted him to fly, but that 
the limitations of his present existence made it pos- 
sible for him to do nothing more than crawl? 

So when men look away from the universe toward 
themselves. We feel somehow that we ought, at 
least, to know ourselves ; and yet we do not. And 
looking into the eyes of others, it is the same. We 
can not help feeling that somehow mind in us ought 
to see mind, and read the operations of mind in our 
fellow-men ; and yet is it not a fact that every man 
is a sealed book to every other man ? It seems to 
us often as if we must discern the thoughts of our 
fellow-creatures, and sometimes, so strong is the 
desire, it seems almost as if we could ; yet we can 



Faculties and Aspirations of Man. 55 

not. The veil obscuring them is very ephemeral ; 
but it is there, and we can neither remove nor 
penetrate it. 

So with our desire to know God — another in- 
stinct of human nature. We did not need the 
Bible to tell us that in the beginning was God. 
Mankind has known through all the ages that there 
was a Creator and Upholder of the universe — a 
Being of infinite intelligence and goodness. To 
conceive of God seems to be a necessary part of 
our mental fabric; and what more natural, when 
we have discovered this Being sitting in the circle 
of the heavens, animating and governing all things, 
than that we should desire to know him — to know 
what he is, and what the relation he sustains to his 
creatures ? We must remember, too, that the crav- 
ings of the human heart in this matter are not 
fully met, in the present world, even by religion ; 
for, though revelation says so much about God, 
how little do we comprehend the meaning of what 
it says ; and, though Christian experience brings 
us in one sense, so near to him, yet, nevertheless, 
owing to our material limitations, how very far are we 
removed from him, even when we have approached 
as closely into the secret of his presence as it is 
possible for us to do! 



56 Immortality. 

Ah ! here again it becomes evident that we are 
caged birds. Remember, too, that we are not ask- 
ing now what the Bible says of our origin and des- 
tiny, but that we are asking merely what common 
sense and our own powers of observation say upon 
these subjects. We are looking at man. We are 
examining him, to see what kind of a being he is — 
to ascertain whether or not it is possible to recon- 
cile such a creature with his present surroundings ; 
and we find that this is not possible. Man, we dis- 
cover, has wings — instruments of locomotion — 
which, if given full liberty, would carry him into a 
larger sphere ; aspirations, which find in his present 
abiding -place no adequate gratification; tastes, 
thirsts, instincts, impulses — call them what you 
will — which indicate unmistakably that he, no 
less than the bird of which we have spoken, is an 
exile and a prisoner — a being who, far from having 
his entire existence in this world, is simply de- 
tained here for a little time, his natural home and 
the sphere of his full development being not in 
this world, but in some other. 

Another argument for a future life is that drawn 
from moral obligation. Men everywhere have a 
sense of right and wrong. The most benighted 
of earth's children have had this much light, and 



Faculties and Aspirations of Man 57 

everywhere has there accompanied it a presentiment 
that, while good deeds were certain of their final 
reward, evil deeds would as surely in the end be 
visited by their just punishment. Now, how are 
we to account for this moral perception, and for 
the fear of retribution attending it, excepting as a 
reflection from the world beyond — a coming event 
w 7 hich casts its shadow before? Is it not an axiom 
that all phenomena must have some adequate cause 
behind it, and if there be nothing in this life, as 
there certainly is not, that could give rise in heathen 
minds to this fear of punishment, are we not justified 
in referring it to the influence of the life to come ? 
Astronomy comes to our help in the illustration 
of this point; for have there not been instances in 
which, from perturbations in certain planets, unac- 
counted for by any known influence, scientific men 
have argued the existence and ascertained the lo- 
cation of other planets not then dicovered; and 
when, guided by these conclusions, the telescope has 
been turned toward the point thus marked out, have 
not these new centers of light and power started at 
once into view ? JSTow T , what if the heart of man is 
subject to perturbations that are not accounted for 
by any influence of his present life? What if we 
find a conscience within him, and a fearful looking 



58 Immortality, 

for of judgment and fiery indignation on account 
of wrong-doing — feelings, the only adequate expla- 
nation of which is a future life — what conclusion 
can we reach in that case other than that the pres- 
ence of conscience and the pressure of moral obli- 
gation prove the reality of a future life? 



Proofs from History and Analogy. 59 



II. 
Proofs from History and Analogy. 

It is an undeniable fact that men generally, if 
not universally — even those who have had no light 
whatever from the Bible — have felt that there is 
a future life; which is another argument in its favor. 
It may not be true that all men have really be- 
lieved in immortality; but the race of people has 
yet to be found which has totally disbelieved in it ; 
while so general is the expectation of life after 
death among all the races of mankind that, by 
common consent, this expectation is regarded as one 
of the intuitions of our common humanity ; not 
a fact derived from the Bible, nor from observation, 
nor from reason, but a conception revealed to man, 
like a flash, simultaneously with his idea of God and 
his fear of retribution, when the Creator first lights 
in his soul the lamp of intelligent consciousness. 
Ah ! here is another bird-wing which proves that we 
were not destined to spend our whole existence in 
this prison-house of clay, and the most savage pos- 
sess it equally with the most intelligent. 

Look away back in history at that Arab grave, 
with the skeleton of a camel lying upon it. What 



60 Immortality. 

does it mean, do you ask? It means that those 
Arabs believed in a future life, and that they showed 
their faith in it by causing the camel to die, after 
its owner had died, that the man might have the 
use of his beast in another world. Look at that 
funeral pyre kindled by the ancient Gauls — horses, 
armor, ornaments, dogs, and sometimes servants, 
tumbled into a common heap, and then consumed in 
flames. What does that mean, does some one in- 
quire? It means that a chieftain is dead, and that 
those surviving him believe that though he has died 
he still lives, and that, for the same reason as in 
the case of the Arab's camel, they are sending these 
things after him, or think that they are. And who 
does not know, too, that from time immemorial it 
has been customary, upon the death of an Indian 
chief, to bury in the same grave with his body 
the hunting accouterments he loved so well, this 
act looking forward to the dead man's probable 
need of these things in the happy hunting-grounds 
above? And is not this another expression by 
untutored minds of the idea of immortality? 

Then, passing to the other extreme of human 
enlightenment, look at the arguments and con- 
clusions of heathen philosophers. Plato and Py- 
thagoras both believed in a future life. And what 



Proofs from History and Analogy. 61 

must we think when we hear Socrates discoursing 
calmly and confidently of the soul's immortality, 
saying in effect, " I shall not die, but live," as he 
holds in his hand the bowl of hemlock, which 
presently he will drink, to carry out a sentence of 
death which has been unjustly passed upon him? 
Cicero observes : " There is in the minds of men a 
certain presage, as it were, of a future existence ; 
and this," he adds, " takes the deepest root, and is 
most discoverable in the greatest geniuses and most 
exalted souls." This is in attestation of what, ac- 
cording to Cicero's observation, others felt on this 
subject; and coming from so ancient as well as so 
intelligent a source, you will see at once how valu- 
able is this testimony. Of his own convictions 
Cicero says : " When I consider the wonderful 
activity of the mind, so great a memory of what is 
past, and such a capacity of penetrating into the 
future ; when I behold such a number of arts and 
sciences, and such a multitude of discoveries thence 
arising, I believe and am firmly convinced that a 
nature which contains so many things wdthin itself 
can not be mortal." And then he adds : " But if I 
err in believing that the souls of men are immortal, 
I willingly err, nor, while I live, w 7 ould I wish to 
have this delightful error extorted from me." 



62 Immortality. 

Here, then, is another pair of ample wings — 
another indication that man, though caged now, was 
made to fly; the argument being, that if God 
created us with an expectation of a future life, it is 
only reasonable to suppose that he intended to meet 
that expectation ; a conclusion, too, which is greatly 
strengthened by the analogies of the case; for do 
we not see, in the divine economy, that natural 
thirst is provided for by water ; that hunger is met 
and relieved by food; that the social instincts find 
their complement in the companions about us; that 
the propensity to love soon discovers worthy objects 
of affection, and man's transcendent capability for 
thought, sublime problems upon which to exercise 
itself? And if the natural instiuct is met in each 
of these cases, and in every other of which we have 
any knowledge, why not in the one now under con- 
sideration? Can we conceive that the only purpose 
of our Creator in endowing us with love of life, 
and with the expectation of a future life, could have 
been to mock us by holding out to the hope a prom- 
ise which he had no intention of fulfilling to the 
heart? 

Here, then, is another consideration which makes 
the doctrine of immortality extremely likely, to say 
the least, if not indeed absolutely certain; and the 



Proofs from History and Analogy. 63 

Bible, you will remember, has not yet been brought 
into requisition to substantiate a single point; all 
that has been established thus far having been de- 
rived by inference from our study of the bird inside 
of the cage, not from the book of particulars which 
hangs ready for our use on the outside. 



64 Immortality. 



III. 

Man too Noble to be Only a Mortal. 

Speaking again of the caged bird reminds us of 
bis gorgeous plumage. Our conclusion was tbat he 
was too bright, too beautiful a thing for a clime 
like this ; and what other conclusion can we reach 
respecting man? We speak, of course, of mental 
and moral beauty — a realm in which, so far as this 
world is concerned, the human creature has not only 
no equal, but no competitor ; and we declare to you, 
in all candor, that, in some aspects and under some 
circumstances, men are so noble, so unearthly, so 
godlike in their conduct, as to make the supposi- 
tion that they are only the creatures of a day, seem 
not merely unreasonable but almost impious. 

How the bright, beautiful plumage of this human 
bird showed itself here and there in flashes of un- 
earthly splendor from amid the gloom and horror of 
one of our all too frequent railroad disasters. What 
a scene of suffering and bloodshed that was, and 
yet what a scene of heroism and glory ! We recall 
some of the incidents — stories worthy to be en- 
shrined in immortal verse and to be celebrated by 
angel choirs around the throne. One woman was 



Too Noble to be Only Mortal. 65 

burned almost to a crisp, and yet she sat erect with 
her dead child in her arras. Yes, and who can fail 
to see in those lifeless and fleshless arms, still en- 
twining that cherished babe, a suggestion amounting 
almost to absolute proof that mother-love is inde- 
structible by death. A man was found lying on the 
track with a broken leg. To those who proposed 
help he cried out : " My daughter \s on the last car ; 
go and save her, and let me lie here !" Taken to a 
place of shelter, he had no sooner been put in a 
comfortable position than a girl was carried in and 
placed on the seat opposite. The girl was crying, 
"Father, father!" And the man, recognizing the 
voice and forgetting his own injuries, jumped up 
with a cry of " Lizzie, Lizzie !" clasped to his 
bosom the girl, who afterwards died, and then sank 
in a faint to the floor. There was fatherly love — 
not quite so impressive a picture as that given of 
mother love, but good enough to show that such 
love ought not to terminate at death, and to raise 
a strong presumption that it will not. 

" That ? s my Jimmy's voice," said a man ; " God 
have mercy upon him ! It *s my darling boy, and 
I can *t help him." The boy's cries continuing, the 
father jumped to the side of the car and cried, 
"Keep up your courage, Jimmy; your father is 



66 Immortality, 

coming to save you;" after which he struck a 
window with his clenched fist and crawled through 
the opening. Fifteen minutes later he staggered 
out into the air with his boy in his arms, both 
covered with blood. There was a smile on the 
father's face. He kissed the pale lips of his son, 
and said to him: " Jimmy, you knew I would n't 
stand by and see you die. No, my boy, I 've 
saved you." Then he placed him in a seat, looked 
into his eyes, jumped up, staggered back, and 
screamed, as he sank by his side in unconscious- 
ness : " My God ! He is dead !" Yes, the boy was 
dead in one sense; but do not tell us — O do not 
tell us, for we could not believe it — that that within 
him whrch called forth such love from that strong 
man was dead, or that that in the man which made 
him capable of such love can ever die. 

Then, there was the young lady fastened in by the 
telescoped cars, who said to the rescuers : " Go to the 
others, who are suffering; I 'm not suffering;" as 
well she might not be; she must have been beyond 
suffering, for in a few minutes she was dead from 
loss of blood. There was, also, that youth of four- 
teen whom it took four hours to extricate, and who 
afterwards died, but who said, when first discovered ; 



Too Noble to be only Mortal. 67 

"Tend to that other boy; he's hurt worse than 
I am." 

Such are some instances of heroism and glory 
which occurred only a few months ago. And with 
these pictures before us — showing what human 
beings are at their best, and how unselfish and 
sublime a thing is human affection — we affirm 
again, with all the emphasis we can command for 
the purpose, that such creatures, in their highest 
moods, are too grand, too noble, too godlike, to 
have their all of existence in a world like this; 
but that, on the contrary, the God who made them 
what they are must have made a world to match 
their lofty capabilities, and must have intended 
that they shall not die, but live, and, their earthly 
probation passed in an acceptable manner, declare 
his works in a grander sphere, amid better sur- 
roundings, and with more favorable opportunities 
for development. 



68 Immortality. 



IV. 
The Song of the Human Heart. 

We emphasized at the beginning, not only the 
bright plumage of this caged bird, but his sweet 
warblings as well. We asked you if you ever heard, 
in these climes, bird-notes which were like them ? 
Then we asked you to put your ear to the heart of 
man and listen to his song, to see if you ever heard 
anything like that. By the song of the human 
heart, we mean the great thoughts which well up 
within us, and which find expression in literature, in 
the arts and sciences, and in the practical affairs of 
daily life. Take the product of a brain like Shakes- 
peare's. If the words and thoughts are immortal, 
what of the spirit, what of the mind, out of which 
they came? Can you conceive of such a mind re- 
lapsing into dust, or falling into slumber, or ceasing 
to be? And the same must be said of Milton, of 
Paul, of Wesley, and of hundreds of others both 
living and dead. The bird must belong to another 
clime than this, the spirit must have a sphere await- 
ing in the future, so superior, so unearthly, so di- 
vine is the song it sings ! 



The Song of the Human Heart. 69 

Often, too, as the end of life draws near, the 
mind increases in strength and the thoughts take on 
an added grandeur. It is but reasonable to assume 
that this is always so in reality, and that, but for 
the impairment of the mediums of expression by 
disease, it would always so appear And if the mind 
does indeed increase in vigor to the last, why is it 
that it does? Surely not that it may be suddenly 
extinguished — how can we imagine such a thing? 
Really the supposition is so violent — so opposed to 
all our preconceived notions — that we can not im- 
agine it, and, what is more, we can not help believ- 
ing the contrary. And when we hear Charles 
Kingsley say, in dying, " It is not darkness I am 
going to, for God is light; it is not lonely, for Christ 
\ is with me; it is not an unknown country, for Christ 
is there ;" and, then, after telling how earnestly he 
was looking forward, hear him say, "God forgive 
me if I am wrong, but I look forward to that 
country with reverent curiosity," — when we hear so 
great a man sing in his death so confident and 
jubilant a song, we can not help feeling that it must 
be he will continue to sing — that he will not die 
but live — and that when the body, which has been 
his prison for a time, shall have fallen into decay, 



70 Immortality, 

the liberated spirit, introduced at last into its native 
atmosphere, and its own country, will sing to the 
praises of its Creator more sweetly and sublimely 
than ever before. 

So when we hear Charles Wesley, as he dictates 
in his closing hours the last of seven thousand 
hymns, the first verse of which, so sweet and beau- 
tiful, is — 

" In age and feebleness extreme, 
Who shall a guilty worm redeem ? 
Jesus, my only hope thou art, 
Strength of my failing flesh and heart; 
O, could I catch a smile from thee, 
And drop into eternity !" — 

when, I say, we hear Charles Wesley singing in 
that strain in his death, after having sung in a sim- 
ilar strain all through his life, what else can we an- 
ticipate than that this nightingale of sacred poesy, 
far from lapsing into inaction and silence when the 
cage shall have dissolved from about him, will 
rather, in that supreme moment of freedom, plume 
his wings for flight into the great empyrean of fu- 
turity, and raise his voice to a pitch of melody and 
of glory such as, in his loftiest flights on earth, he 
had never approximated and had scarcely dreamed 
was possible. 



The Song of the Human Heart. 71 

But it is time now that we took down the book 
from the bird-cage. We have discovered without 
the book that the bird is an exile and a prisoner ; 
that he belongs elsewhere than where he is — :let the 
book now give us full particulars respecting him. 



72 Immortality. 



V. 
From the Bird to the Book. 

That the Bible teaches the great doctrine of im- 
mortality every one is well aware. It is a question 
with some whether this truth is taught distinctly in 
the Old Testament; and yet how little ground is 
there for such a question! Excepting that he had 
in his mind the idea of a future life, what could 
Isaiah have meant when he cried out, "Thy dead 
men shall live ;" or Daniel, when he declared that 
" many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth 
shall awake ;" or Job, when he exclaimed, " I know 
that my Eedeemer liveth, and that ... in my 
flesh I shall see God." How can you explain satis- 
factorily such passages as these, excepting on the 
assumption that these holy men of old cherished, as 
a part of their creed, this glorious doctrine of a 
future life? And if this was not one of the ancient 
doctrines of the Jews, how came it that, at the time 
of Christ, the Jewish people were divided into 
Pharisees and Sadducees, the latter denying that 
there was a future life, and the former, who were 
vastly in the majority, affirming it? 

But whatever some may think of the Old Testa- 



From the Bird to the Book. 73 

ment, the man who should doubt that the New Tes- 
tament bore ample evidence to the future life is the 
man who would not hesitate to stand in the full 
glare of the noonday and declare it to be still mid- 
night. It is the proud distinction of the gospel 
that it brings to light life and immortality. This 
does not mean, however, that the New Testament 
contains either the sole or the first revelation of the 
life to come, but simply that it makes plain and 
clear what had previously been enveloped in more 
or less of mystery ; that it meets us as we come 
from the study of God, of man, of creation, of Provi- 
dence, of reason, of philosophy and of the Scrip- 
tures of the Old Testament — that the New Testament 
meets us as we come from our researches within 
these realms, fully convinced that there must be a 
future life, and says, You are quite right; and 
while it makes assurance of the fact doubly sure, 
informs us, also, what that future life will be ; un- 
folding to our thought, in connection with the ab- 
stract idea of a future life, the larger, grander 
verity of eternal life ; and teaching, too, not merely 
that the spirit will live after death, but that, by and 
by, there will be a resurrection from the dead of 
some elements or particles of the human body, and 
that spirit and body together will be co-existent in 



74 Immortality. 

the other world with the God who made them, and 
eternally happy or miserable, accordingly as they im- 
proved or neglected the opportunities they had while 
under discipline and tuition in their life on this 
earth. Such is the teaching of the New Testa- 
tament in regard to the life to come, and the proof 
passages are as household words to us. 

These proofs we may pursue at our leisure. We 
prefer at this time to close as we began, and have 
so far continued, by testimony from without. 



An Answer to Ingersoll. 75 



VI. 

An Answer to Ingersoll. 

Robert G. Ingersoll, delivering an oration over 
the coffin of his dead brother said : " Life is a nar- 
row vale between the cold and barren peaks of two 
eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond; we 
cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our 
wailing cries." So speaks Ingersoll of the future 
life. But Ingersoll we refute and put to silence by 
the sublime utterances of Victor Hugo, who says : 
" I feel in myself a future life. I am like a forest 
which has been more than once cut down. The new 
shoots are stronger and livelier than ever. I am 
rising, I know, toward the sky. Winter is on my 
head, but eternal spring is in my heart. For half 
a century I have been writing my thoughts ; yet I 
feel I've not said a thousandth part of what is in 
me. My work is only in its beginning — it is 
hardly above the foundation. I thirst, like my fel- 
low-creatures, for the infinite, and this thirst proves 
the infinite. The tomb is not a blind alley; it is a 
thoroughfare. It closes in the twilight, to open with 
the dawn." Thus speaks Victor Hugo. And this 



76 Immortality. 

voice is the voice of enlightened mankind every- 
where. He feels the future life within himself; and 
so do we ; so do all ; and, as he well concludes, this 
thirst for the infinite proves the infinite. 

So, let those follow Ingersoll toward cold and 
barren peaks who choose to do so ; but give us the 
faith of Hugo, the faith of the old philosophers, the 
faith of the patriarchs, the prophets, the apostles — 
Tennyson's sublime faith, as expressed in one of 
his latest poems, in which, anticipating the time 
when he must leave the narrows of life and enter 
the great ocean of eternity, he puts forth this ring- 
ing note of Christian triumph : 

11 Twilight and evening bell, 

And after that the dark ; 
And may there be no sadness of farewell, 

When I embark ! 
For though from out our bourn of Time and Place 

The flood may bear me far, 
I hope to see my Pilot face to face 

When I have crossed the bar." 



III. 

Heavenly Recognition. 

WHAT ASSURANCE HAVE WE THAT WE SHALL 
KNOW ONE ANOTHER IN HEAVEN? 



"Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, be- 
lieve also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: 
if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a 
place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will 
come again, and receive you unto myself ; that where I am, 

there ye may be also." 

—John xiv, 1-3. 



HEAVENLY RECOGNITION. 



What Assurance have we that we shall know 
One Another in Heaven? 

TT is always well, when information is needed 
-*- upon a special subject, to carry our inquiries 
to those most likely to be familiar with that sub- 
ject; and this is the course we have pursued on 
the present occasion. Our object is to obtain in- 
formation of a particular and decisive character in 
regard to heaven. Very properly, therefore, we 
have passed by all subordinate authorities, and 
have carried our appeal to head-quarters. We have 
allowed Jesus to speak. He who came from 
heaven and then returned thither, He who made 
heaven possible to the human family, He through 
whose merits all who are faithful will gain access 
to heaven — He it is to whom we have gone, and 
whose words we have brought to you as the best 
possible means of putting to rest any anxieties we 
may have as to whether or not we shall know one 
another in heaven. 

6 79 



80 Heavenly Recognition. 

It is common to deplore our lack of inofrmation 
in regard to the heavenly world. Really, how- 
ever, we know a great deal concerning it. This 
would be true though we had only the informa- 
tion embraced in the passage before us. Not only 
do these words of our Savior settle satisfactorily 
the question we are now considering, but they set- 
tle, or at least are capable of settling, every other 
question of the heart touching that place. It has 
long been our conviction that we know respecting 
heaven all it is really necessary for us to know ; and 
we are convinced now, from considerable thought 
upon the subject, that all that is really essential to 
assure us that heaven will be a place of perfect hap- 
piness is revealed in this single utterance of the 
Lord Jesus Christ. 



Recognition Argued in a Story. 81 



I. 

Recognition Argued in a Story. 

To show the process by which this comforting 
assurance has been reached, we ask attention to what 
we trust will prove to be an interesting story. It 
relates to two brothers. One was much older and 
wiser than the other, and the parents, when they 
passed away, made him the younger child's guardian. 
The elder brother had been left with an immense 
fortune. It was his own, and yet, as he well 
understood, it was intended to be used for the ben- 
efit of both. The elder brother loved the younger 
very tenderly. A father could not have been more 
considerate of the boy's needs ; a mother, even, could 
scarcely have shown greater devotion. It had been 
clearly evidenced by a most dreadful occurrence that 
this love of the elder brother to the younger was a 
love which in its sacrifices would stop at nothing; 
for while the boy was still of tender years the family 
dwelling took fire, and only for the heroic efforts 
of that strong man the boy would have perished. 
A rescue under more desperate circumstances could 
scarcely be imagined. The bystanders held their 
breath in amazement. That brother had literally 



82 Heavenly Recognition. 

to pass through fire both as he entered the dwell- 
ing and as he left it. He was terribly burned; so 
much so that his scarred visage and wounded hands 
made him an object of almost painful interest wher- 
ever he appeared afterwards. 

Those who witnessed the scene say that when 
the man came out of the building he reeled about 
for an instant, and then fell, utterly exhausted ; still, 
however, keeping the child pressed close to his 
heart. The boy, it was found, was not only alive, but 
had escaped almost without injury This was owing 
to the way in which his brother had screened him 
as they passed through the fire by keeping the boy's 
face and hands closely tucked into his own breast. 
It was a marvelous rescue. No wonder several 
historians have handed it down for -admiration by 
succeeding ages. 

And need it be said that this incident greatly in- 
tensified the mutual love of these two brothers; that 
the elder felt, as he looked at the younger, that the 
boy was now his own flesh and blood in a nearer and 
dearer sense than ever before, and that the younger 
looked upon his brother's scars, contracted in that 
hour of supreme peril, as the best possible proot 
that he could safely rely upon him in the adjust- 
ment of their mutual financial affairs? 



Recognition Argued in a Story. 83 

It was time, at length, for the boy to enter col- 
lege. His brother has accompanied him to the 
school, and as they have walked together for a few 
hours through the halls and about the campus, has 
imparted to him many loving counsels. Finally, to 
encourage him in his school labors, he directs his 
youthful mind toward the future. '" A few years 
only will you be here," he said ; " then you will 
come home. Meanwhile," he continued, "you need 
give yourself no uneasiness whatever about where 
you will live or what you will do at that time ; I 
will attend to those matters, and, I pledge you my 
word, everything shall be satisfactory. I intend," 
he continued, "to fit up an establishment for you. 
I can not give particulars now ; I can only say, I 
know your tastes and needs, and that in this new 
home I propose erecting for you all these shall be 
met. As to money," he still continues, — " as to 
money, you know I have of that an almost unlim- 
ited supply. And as to my interest in you," he ob- 
served — and he was about to say more, but the boy 
interrupted him. 

He could stand it no longer. His heart had 
filled with emotion ; the tears had gathered to his 
eyes. " Brother, brother," he sobbed, as he threw 
his arms passionately about the man's neck and lav- 



84 Heavenly Recognition. 

isbed kiss after kiss upon his scarred but kiudly 
visage — " brother, brother, say no more — it is not 
necessary. I know it will be all right; I trust 
you with all my heart. A thousand, thousand thanks 
for all you have done, and for all you say you 
will do, especially for the home you are going 
to prepare. I know it will suit because you are to 
prepare it. God keep me faithful, and make me 
worthy to take possession of that home !" 



The Story Applied. 85 



II. 

The Story Applied. 

That elder brother — you will surmise who he is. 
The younger brother may be yourself — he may be 
any of us; for the character is intended to be repre- 
sentative of humanity in general. We are at school, 
and the Savior when he left us here sought to make 
our lot as pleasant as possible by reminding us what 
was to follow the school life. After school, he as- 
sured us, w r e should return home where he was. 
O, blessed thought! And w T e need give ourselves 
no uneasiness, he said, as to what that home would 
be like. It would be planned by his own wisdom, 
and prepared by his own power; and we might 
rest assured, therefore, that it would exactly suit us. 
" Let not your heart be troubled " — these were his 
words — "Let not your heart be troubled; ye be- 
lieve in God, believe also in me. In my father's 
house are many mansions; if ft were not so I would 
have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And 
if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come 
again and receive you unto myself; that where I 
am there ye may be also." 



86 Heavenly Recognition. 

So speaks our Elder Brother; and at once our 
hearts respond, as in the other case, " It is enough." 

The facts which make it so certain that the home 
which is to be prepared for us by the Savior him- 
self will indeed suit us, are first, that, as his scarred 
visage and wounded hands so fully attest, he loves 
us and desires our happiness; secondly, that, as 
evidenced by his declaration, "All power is given 
unto me in heaven and in earth," he has unlimited 
resources at his command; and, thirdly, that, as 
shown in scores of Scriptural passages, he is 
thoroughly familiar with our tastes and require- 
ments. These are the considerations which make 
it, as we have observed, not probable alone, but 
absolutely certain, that our heavenly dwelling-place, 
prepared as it is by our Savior's own hands, will 
suit us in all respects, and will possess in its ap- 
pointments all the essentials of perfect happiness. 

How could this be otherwise? Suppose in Christ 
infinite love for our souls, perfect knowledge of our 
needs, and omnipotent power from which to supply 
those needs ; suppose in the Savior such a trinity 
of endowments as this — and every one knows that 
this trinity exists in him — and then, as we hear him 
say, just before leaving this world, "Let not your 



The Story Applied. 87 

heart be troubled ; I go to prepare a place for 
you," — what does it mean? What can it mean? 

Let me tell you, my friends, that what it means 
to me is, that it satisfies all the aspirations of my 
longing heart; that it meets every question about 
heaven, and settles it — the question relating to 
heavenly recognition not only, but every other that 
is reasonable and proper. It means, too, that after 
such an utterance from such a source, I can ask for 
nothing more, but have only now, as one of the 
humblest of his followers, to throw my arms of 
faith about his neck, to bedew his devoted locks 
with my tears of gratitude, to lavish upon his 
scarred and holy visage the kisses of my love, and 
to say, as the boy at school said, A thousand, thou- 
sand thanks for what thou hast already done, and 
for what thou hast promised to do; especially for 
the home thou art preparing. Planned and con- 
structed by thyself, it can not fail to meet my needs. 
God keep me faithful, and make me worthy to take 
possession of that home ! 

The argument from these premises in support of 
this special doctrine of heavenly recognition is a 
very natural one, and to candid minds it will be 
entirely conclusive. 



88 Heavenly Recognition. 



III. 
Recognition Argued from the Nature of Man. 

Assuming that Christ is thoroughly and per- 
fectly acquainted with us, then we confidently affirm 
that he knows nothing about us that is more ob- 
viously true, or more intimately related to our 
welfare, than the fact that we are beings endowed 
to a pre-eminent degree with social proclivities. 
No more is it the nature of the vine to put forth 
tendrils, and to feel about as it grows for something 
upon which to lean for support, than it is the nature 
of the human heart to fasten itself by the soft ten- 
drils of affection to other hearts. We can not help 
knowing one another ; it seems, indeed, as though 
our Creator had thrown us into intimate relations 
expressly to further this end ; and in many instances, 
when we know one another, we can not help the 
uprising within us of these sentiments of attach- 
ment. 

How can the mother do otherwise than love her 
child? It is clearly the will of God that she should 
love it, for he has gifted her with faculties which 
make it as natural for her to do this as to breathe. 
How salutary, too, that mother-love, and how in- 



Recognition Argued. 89 

dispensable; for what but that insures to the child 
the motherly care which is a necessity to its life? 
Because she loves her babe, she cherishes it. So 
with love in other forms. Because the father loves 
his family, he grudges no toil in providing them a 
subsistence. Is it not a fact, moreover, that the same 
love which impels a man to cherish the members 
of his family in this world, makes it impossible for 
him to do otherwise than desire to see and know 
and cherish them in the next? And is it not the 
same with mother-love? When we see a woman 
watching in sleepless anxiety by the bedside of her 
child in its illness, we say involuntarily, That is 
natural — that is as it should be. But is it not ap- 
parent that the instincts which impel that mother 
to make sacrifices for her child while it lives, are 
the very same instincts which, when the child is 
dead, send her to the cemetery to keep its grave sweet 
with flowers, and cause her to cherish, as the fond- 
est hope of life, the blessed prospect of one day 
pressing it to her bosom again ? 

Now, the question naturally arises : If that 
mother-love be proper, if it be natural, if it be as 
God would have it, in the earlier form of its mani- 
festation, why not in the later ? And if we admit 
that the craving for conscious reunion with the de- 



90 He a venl y Recognition. 

parted is a proper craving of the heart, can we con- 
ceive otherwise than that our elder brother knows 
this, and will take it into account in the appoint- 
ments of that home he is preparing for us in his 
own presence? 

The most obvious fact pertaining to our present 
life is the fact that no man liveth to himself. We 
are linked together in this world. We must bear 
in mind, too, that in these mutual relationships 
the union is one, not of body merely, but of spirit 
as well — primarily, in fact, a union of spirit. Now, 
that the spirit will survive the shock of death we 
do not question ; and admitting this, how can we 
doubt that those propensities and attachments which 
seem here to constitute the chief phenomena of spirit 
will likewise exist beyond the grave? And this 
granted — granted that we are to take with us not 
merely the memory of these earthly attachments, 
but the power and the desire to continue them ; 
granted that that mother, whose firm expectation, 
since her child died, has been that she should see 
and know it again in heaven, does really take this 
expectation with her into the other world — let all 
this be granted, and can any one then believe that 
the Savior, who loves us so fondly and knows us so 
fully, will have failed, in fitting up our eternal man- 



Recognition Argued. 91 

sions, to make the provision needed to meet and 
gratify an expectation which is at once so natural, 
so innocent, so commendable, and, as regards the 
present life, so obviously beneficial in its effects? 

Ah ! we must take you again to that scene 'neath 
the shade-trees on the college campus. "Give your- 
self no concern," says the elder brother to the 
younger ; " I '11 prepare a home for you. I Ml war- 
rant, too, that it shall be just what you will like. 
If it were not so, I would tell you. Let not your 
heart be troubled. I '11 see that everything is as it 
should be." Thus the man spoke, and he seemed 
to be sincere and very much in earnest. 

Suppose, however, that the boy's nature were 
predominantly a sociable one, and that the home, 
finally provided by his brother, were constructed 
in utter disregard of this fact. The boy, to be sure, 
has other likings, and these, we will suppose, 
are met. He is fond of art. That is the ex- 
planation of the beautiful pictures you see on the 
walls. He is interested in knowledge. Hence those 
ample shelves filled with rare and useful books. He 
has a taste for music ; and there, you see, are the 
instruments with which he may indulge that taste. 
He is something of an epicure, too, and his brother, 
knowing that, has equipped amply the culinary de- 



92 Heavenly Recognition. 

partment of the new home. He is fond of riding 
and driving. Think, therefore, of the pleasure with 
which he will view that fine stable and capacious 
carriage-house. He has a passion for beautiful 
flowers, for rich foliage, for green meadows, for 
majestic shade-trees, and for fountains tossing their 
rainbow-tinted spray into the sunshine. Hence 
those ample, tasteful gardens, and the well-kept 
grounds attached to the place. All these tastes have 
been provided for, and so far there is no room for 
complaint. But the boy, we have been assured, is 
pre-eminently a person of social proclivities — one 
whose chief delight is neither in music, in art, in 
knowledge, in gastronomy, in exercise, in sport, nor 
in the beauties of nature, but in human society. 
He is a boy who loves company; who, if he is to 
be really happy, will need to see his friends about 
him. That ? s the kind of a boy he is, and the kind of 
a man he will become. Notice, however, that high 
wall encircling the establishment. Let me call your 
attention, also, to the moat surrounding the wall, 
crossible only by a drawbridge. Why, the place 
looks more like a prison than a dwelling. Surely, 
you will say, it is not the purpose of his brother to 
entirely seclude this sociably inclined young man — 
to make a recluse of one who was born and reared 



Recognition Argued. 93 

for society. If it be, then, you say, he only mocked 
the boy when he promised to prepare a suitable home 
for him; for this is not a suitable home for a person of 
his tastes, nor can such a person ever be happy there. 
Such would be your conclusion in that case, and 
it would be a reasonable and valid one. You may 
rest assured, however, that that man, loving his 
brother as he does, and knowing him as he does, 
will commit no such blunder. Just as you may be 
fully assured, and far more certainly assured, that 
our blessed Christ will make no such mistake in 
the home he has gone to prepare for his saints. 
He would certainly not do such a thing through 
malice or from indifference — he loves us too well 
for that; and, of course, remembering his thorough 
and perfect acquaintance with us, it is equally in- 
conceivable that he could fail to provide for our 
social needs through ignorance. 



94 Heavenly Recognition. 



IV. 

Recognition Necessary to our Heavenly 
Contentment. 

So far as we can tell now, heaven could scarcely 
be a real heaven to such beings as we are, with no 
recognition of friends there; nor does any one 
understand this better than our Elder Brother. 
? T were useless to merely tell us of the music of 
heaven — the grand symphonies of angelic choirs ; 
useless to picture to us the beauties and glories of a 
city whose streets are gold, whose palaces are jasper, 
and whose every gate is a pearl ; useless to remind 
us of the facilities afforded there for increasing our 
knowledge. Not that we could not find pleasure 
in such things as these. The point is, however, 
that none of these things separately, nor all of them 
together — leaving unsatisfied, as they would, that 
which is the strongest craving of every human 
heart — could possibly make up to us the full meas- 
ure of satisfied contentment. 

Ah ! what we want to be assured of, in reference 
to the music of the skies, is whether we shall know 
any of the white-robed singers — whether in the 
lofty anthems of that choir angelic we shall hear 



Recognition Necessary. 95 

and recognize that sweet voice we heard so often 
and loved so well on earth. To interest natures 
such as ours, you must not merely tell us that the 
streets of heaven are gold-paved, but you must tell 
us, if you please, who those shining ones are inhab- 
iting the mansions on either side of those gold- 
paved streets. 

We can have little idea how a gate of pearl would 
look ; and the majority of mortals, it may be as- 
sumed, have little curiosity on the subject. Every- 
thing as to the gate of heaven will depend upon 
two circumstances : First, the kind of place to which 
it admits us; and secondly, the welcome we shall 
get when we have passed the portals of that gate. 
Do n't tell us when we come to die — do n't try to 
stimulate faith by telling us how beautiful heaven's 
gate will be ; but tell us this : Shall we know any 
of the inhabitants Avho crowd its portals and strain 
their eyes to catch a glimpse of the new-comer who 
has been announced? 

11 Will any one there, at that beautiful gate, 
Be watching and waiting for me?" 

That is what natures like ours are primarily 
anxious to find out in reference to heaven j nor 
can we help it. We were made that way. We can 
not help loving. We can not help forming attach- 



96 He a venl y Recognition. 

ments. We can not help sorrowing over dead friends. 
We can not help cherishing the sweet memory of 
the departed. We can not help those longings 
which point to a reunion in the other world. We 
are so constituted — God has made us in such a 
way — that we absolutely can not give up our dear 
ones entirely. We can let them go. We say, after 
a time, " Thy will, O God, not mine be done." But 
to ask us to abandon altogether the feeling that they 
still belong to us, and the blessed hope we cher- 
ish that we shall see and know them again in the 
other world, is to require that which is quite im- 
possible; for the images of these sainted ones are 
part of ourselves. You might cut our hearts into 
piecemeal, and still upon the smallest atom would 
there be found an image of our departed loved 
ones. Yes, and it would be gilded and glorified — 
that precious picture — with the sweet hope of fu- 
ture reunion. We are made that way ; we can not 
help it. Clearly, too, it was not intended that we 
should help it, the best proof of the entire propri- 
ety of such feelings being that the more refined and 
saintly our natures become, the more strongly do such 
feelings assert themselves. 

And does not our Elder Brother know all this ? 
He who walked amid the new-made graves and 



Recognition Necessary. 97 

broken households and bleeding hearts of this earth 
for three and thirty years — is it not a foregone 
certainty that he knows all about human sorrows, 
human necessities, and human aspirations ? He who 
mingled his own tears with those of the sisters at 
the grave of Lazarus — can we suppose otherwise 
than that he fully understands that tears wept over 
the dead can only be effectually stayed by the hope 
we cherish of one day seeing and knowing them 
again? And being fully apprised, as he must be, 
that future recognition of departed friends is nec- 
essary to our future happiness, is it not inevitable, 
from the loving care he has shown in all other mat- 
ters affecting our welfare, that he will provide for 
this paramount need in fitting up suitable mansions 
for our dwelling-place in eternity ? 

This, then, is the way in which philosophy comes 
to our help in the study of the question, Shall we 
know one another in heaven? And it will be ad- 
mitted, we venture to hope, that the argument is 
both interesting and conclusive. 



98 Heavenly Recognition. 



V. 

The Larger View of Revelation. 

Let no one imagine that this doctrine rests solely 
upon such proofs as have been adduced. It is sup- 
ported, not only by reason and philosophy, but by 
the unanimous voice of Scripture. The sacred writ- 
ers, indeed, assume that no one will question the 
doctrine, as no one really does; and hence it is im- 
plied in what they say rather than either argued or 
affirmed. When our Savior draws the veil from the 
other world, and presents Lazarus and Dives in 
widely separated places, he does not stop to explain 
how it was that they recognized each other; he is 
content to intimate, in an incidental sort of way, 
that they did know each other there. And this, 
by the way, would seem to suggest, not only that 
the glorified in heaven will know one another, but 
that the inhabitants of the regions of darkness will 
possess similar powers of discernment; and that 
the latter, moreover, will be cognizant of what is 
going on in the regions of blessedness. 

Clearly, too, is it suggested in the Scriptures 
that we shall recognize in heaven, not merely the 
friends we knew on earth, but many whom we 



Larger View of Revelation. 99 

never saw here. One fact is made very plain — a 
most blessed fact withal — and that is, that we shall 
see Jesus in heaven, and shall recognize him as our 
Savior. Observe, too, how conclusive is this fact of 
the whole doctrine of heavenly recognition. For 
how can it be otherwise than that the same faculties 
of perception and appropriation which enable us to 
see him, and to recognize him as one to whom we owe 
a great debt of love, will also enable us to perceive 
and acknowledge the relationship in which we stand 
and the obligations we are under to other friends? 

It is furthermore suggested in the Scriptures 
that we are likely to recognize in heaven the great 
characters of Jewish history and of the early Christian 
Church. Moses and Elias appeared on the Mount 
of Transfiguration, and the three disciples knew 
them. How it came about we are not informed ; 
but the fact is beyond question. So we can not fore- 
see definitely by what means these and others will 
become known to the glorified in heaven ; but we 
believe it. We can not help believing it, because it 
is a distinct suggestion of Scripture, and because, 
moreover, it would seem to be necessary to our 
heavenly contentment and development. 

How the recognition of Abraham, and Isaac, and 
Jacob, and Isaiah, and Ezekiel, and Daniel, and the 



100 He a venl y Recognition. 

apostles, and the holy women of Galilee, and the 
early martyrs, and the great reformers — how our rec- 
ognition of these will be brought about, we can 
only conjecture. Possibly, when the limitations of 
the flesh are removed, we shall know people by in- 
tuition. Such a supposition is not at all unrea- 
sonable. Possibly the blessed Christ will take us 
around and introduce us ; and delightful indeed 
would that be. Or, it may be the angels will at- 
tend to this matter; for there are plenty of them, 
and, from what we know of their natures, they 
would certainly be qualified for such work. Or, it 
is possible again, we shall be left to our own re- 
sources in this matter, and that the process of form- 
ing acquaintances, being gradual, as it is here, will 
form one of the perennial delights of that spirit 
world. Or it may be that one of the first things 
attended to, after the redeemed shall have been se- 
curely enfolded, will be the calling of the roll. 
That would be very interesting, certainly . 

We have often thought of that young soldier, 
mortally wounded and lying in the hospital tent. 
It was near midnight. The surgeons had completed 
their rounds, and everything was very quiet, when 
suddenly this young man, who had been speechless 
before, called out, " Here ! here !" The surgeon hast- 



Larger Vie w of Re vela tion. 101 

ened to his side, and asked what he wished. " Noth- 
ing," he said ; " nothing ; they were calling the roll 
in heaven, and I was answering to my name." 

Yes, perhaps there will be a roll-call in heaven, 
and possibly that will be God's way of letting us know 
at once who is there, and of introducing to us those 
great spirits of past ages whom we are all so anxious 
to meet, and with whom in heaven we hope to hold 
such sweet and holy converse. Possibly this may 
be so. It is all, however, a matter of conjecture. 
Let it suffice, therefore, to be assured that we shall 
know one another there; and let our chief concern 
with reference to that place be, to so live as to be 
certain — should there indeed be a roll-call in 
heaven — that we shall be present to respond to it. 



102 Heavenly Recognition. 



VI. 
Practical Conclusions. 

An inquiry far more important than the question 
of whether or not we shall recognize our friends in 
heaven, is this: Are we sure of getting to heaven, 
and are we sure that all our friends are journeying 
to that place of blessedness? And need we remind 
you that many a man is expecting to meet his child 
in heaven, and many a woman to re-embrace in 
heavenly scenes the sweet babe so rudely torn from 
her by death, when, judging from all appearances, 
these persons have not only no title to heaven, but 
are journeying in the opposite direction? 

Then, assuming that we are Christians, and that 
some of the friends with whom we hold sweet con- 
verse now are not Christians, how this thought of 
heavenly recognition should incite us to labor for 
the salvation of such as these! You are parents, 
w T e will suppose, and the thought of final separation 
from your own flesh and blood is horrifying to you. 
What you are hoping for— the dearest wish of that 
loving heart of yours — is that your whole family 
will be on the right side in the day of judgment, 
and that when the roll of the ransomed shall be 



Practical Conclusions, 103 

called, your response may be, "Here am I, Lord, 
and all the children thou hast given me." This is 
what we hope and desire; and yet how little are 
some of us doing to bring this consummation to 
pass! By everything, therefore, in this thought of 
heavenly recognition, which pleases the mind, or 
touches the heart, or kindles sweet hope in the 
spirit, do we urge all who have found comfort in. 
this thought to quicken their Christian zeal, to 
increase their Christian activities, and to give them- 
selves no rest while there shall still remain outside 
of the fold of the Savior's love a single person 
either in their immediate family or within the circle 
of their cherished acquaintances. 

Recurring again to the probability of intro- 
ductions taking place in heaven, we can not help 
saying that the kind of introduction which would 
seem to be the most desirable is that which was 
promised by a convert from heathenism to the 
missionary who had been instrumental in his sal- 
vation. "When I get to heaven," he said, as he lay 
upon his death-bed, "I '11 go to my Savior, and 
throw myself at his feet, and thank him for his 
mercy in sending a missionary to this land to tell 
me of the truth. Then," said he, " I '11 come back 
to the gate, and sit down till you come; and then 



104 Heavenly Recognition, 

I '11 take you to my Savior's throne, and say: 
1 Here is the man who first told me of the cross 
of Christ — here is the man who led me by thy 
truth into the way of salvation.'" 

Finally, let the sure prospect of heavenly recog- 
nition stimulate the gracious process of earthly rec- 
ognition. In presence of this doctrine, what a let- 
ting down there should be of the barriers which 
keep in such severe isolation those great denomi- 
nations into which the Christian Church is divided ! 
for if representatives of all these various sects are 
to dwell together in conscious union and fellowship 
in the life to come, might we not well find a reason 
in this fact for closer union and more real fellow- 
ship in the life that now is? So within our differ- 
ent Churches; if we are all to be acquainted up 
yonder, what an impulse should we derive from 
that thought toward a more general acquaintance 
down here ! And yet how many there are enjoy- 
ing membership in our Churches who know only 
the merest fraction of those who regularly break 
bread with them at the same communion-table! 
So in reference to the poor about us — God's poor. 
Remembering that these worthy sufferers are likely 
to be our associates in heaven, and that their station 
then may be far more exalted than our own, how 



Practical Conclusions. 105 

anxious we should be to form the acquaintance of 
such as these while it is still possible for us to bear 
some of their burdeus for them ! 

Above all, however, let us get better acquainted 
with Jesus, that so, knowing him more, we may 
love him better, and may love others for his dear 
sake ; and that thus the confidence which is sure to 
follow from deeper love and closer intimacy may 
enable us to realize more and more, as the days 
and years pass, that he does indeed answer not 
only this question of the heart, but every other of 
importance relating to the life to come, when he 
says to us, in such full - assurance of sympathy : 
" Let not your heart be troubled ; ye believe in 
God, believe also in me. In my father's house are 
many mansions; if it were not so, I would have 
told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And 
if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come 
again, and receive you unto myself; that where I 
am, there ye may be also." 



IV. 

The Resurrection. 

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE RESURRECTION 
OF THE DEAD? 



"Marvel not at this : for the hour is coming in the which all 
that are in their graves shall hear his voice, and shall come 
forth ; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; 
and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of dam- 
nation." 

—John v, 28, 29. 



THE RESURRECTION. 



What do we know about the Resurrection 
of the Dead ? 

OUR Lord had just announced to a promiscuous 
audience the fact of his equality with God. and 
in the same connection had appropriated to himself 
a title which had been given in prophecy to the 
Messiah. Those listening were astonished at these 
claims. But without waiting for any expression 
from them, he continued his discourse in words 
which must have astonished them still more. I 
have told you — he said in effect — that I am the Son 
of man, of whom the prophets have spoken. I have 
claimed that I possess power to confer life. I have 
declared, indeed, that already I have conferred life 
upon dead souls, and am still doing it; and these 
things have caused you unfeigned surprise. Now, 
I will tell you something more. Let me assure 
you now that I can give life, not only to dead 
souls, but to dead bodies. Marvel not at that which 

I have already said concerning this Son of man ; re- 

109 



110 The Resurrection. 

serve your astonishment for what I am about to 
say respecting him: " For the hour is coming in the 
which all that are in their graves shall hear his 
voice, and shall come forth." And thus is there 
presented to us an unmistakable affirmation, from 
Christ's own lips, of the great doctrine of the gen- 
eral resurrection of the dead at the last day. 

For definite information upon this subject we are 
indebted, of course, to the Bible ; yet that other 
book of God, the book of nature, is not without its 
suggestions of a resurrection. 



SUG GESTIONS FR OM NA TURE. Ill 



I. 

Suggestions from the Realm of Nature. 

We begin by asking your attention to a dead 
body — a body from which the life has just departed. 
Turn off the electric light of divine truth, and view 
this object in the dim light of reason for a time ; 
and then, by the same pale light, look at the world 
about you to see if you can not find somewhere an 
intimation — at least an intimation, if no more — that 
that still form may some day start into life again. 

Without information to the contrary, you would 
suppose that body to have finished its course. And 
so, with no experience or knowledge to guide him 
to an opposite conclusion, would one, who, for the 
first time, beheld yon glorious sun go down, sup- 
pose that his career was finished, and that the night 
which followed would be an eternal one. And yet 
how different the reality ; for, as all men are aware, 
to every night of darkness a new morning succeeds. 
And with the phenomena of sunrise before him, 
can any one fail to see that, each day, as the shad- 
ows take their departure, and the sleeping earth 
wakens to renewed life, our poor humanity is af- 
forded a suggestion — at least a suggestion — that, 

8 



112 The Resurrection. 

after all, there may come a new day of life and ac- 
tivity to the form that lies so cold and still, await- 
ing interment, in that darkened chamber? 

Look, too, at the present aspect of nature in these 
latitudes. Where are the flowers which a few months 
ago gladdened us with their beauty and delighted us 
by their fragrance ? And what has happened to the 
trees that they look so like gaunt skeletons in the 
outline they throw upon the wintry sky? What 
meaneth it that the soil is so hard to the step, and 
that the insects that caused it to teem with life 
not long ago have all disappeared? Really, now, is 
not the aspect of nature at this time very similar to 
the aspect of a dead body; and in the fact that nature, 
as we know perfectly well, will rise shortly from 
winter's grave into the beauty and glory of spring, 
have we not another suggestion of what may also 
be the destiny of that form out of whose cheeks the 
rose-bloom has faded, and from whose skeleton the 
flesh will soon fall, as the leaves already have fallen 
from the bare trees ? 

And when the warmer weather shall come again, 
we may see another suggestion of the same kind — a 
worm, a crawling, loathsome worm — as clammy and 
repugnant to the touch as a dead body proverbially 
is; and yet is it not a certainty that just about the 



Suggestions from Na ture. 113 

time when the pale beauties of spring are purpling 
into the gorgeous hues of summer, we shall find that 
worm transformed into a bright-winged butterfly — 
one of the most lovely of nature's products, and 
everywhere the symbol of light-hearted gayety ? So 
within the realm of vegetation. Take the seed of a 
flower. Hold it in your hand as you stand by the 
side of that open coffin. Look, first, at the dead 
body, and then at that with which you are compar- 
ing it ; and tell us if the cold form of that cherished 
friend looks any more dead, or any less likely to 
have a glorious future than the dry, uuattractive 
substance in your hand — a substance, however, 
which you know has within it, not simply the pos- 
sibility, but the certainty of a future life? 

But the body, you say, will decompose. Yes, and 
so will the seed before the larger life can spring 
from it. But the particles of the body will disperse 
and disappear, becoming parts of other substances. 
Yes, we admit it ; and so will all the parts of that 
seed disperse and disappear, excepting the essential 
part which goes into the beautiful flower springing 
out of it. It is amazing, too, how long a seed or 
bulb will retain its vitality. We have read of peas, 
dried, wrinkled, and apparently dead, being taken 
from an Egyptian urn after an entombment of three 



114 The Resurrection. 

thousand years. And yet is it not a well-authen- 
ticated fact that these germs of vegetation, when 
placed under glass, and surrounded by the condi- 
tions of life, at once brought forth after their kind? 

Now, we are not so absurd as to present such 
facts as these as being, in any sense, proofs of the 
resurrection of the body. We may hesitate to affirm 
that they even give rise to a presumption that the 
dead body will come to life again. They do show this, 
however: they certainly show that such a thing is 
not inconceivable, nor impossible ; and they seem to 
be intended by a beneficent Creator, whose constant 
effort appears to be to illustrate the teachings of the 
Bible by the facts of nature, to familiarize our 
minds with this doctrine, and thus make it easier 
for us than it otherwise might be to accept 
and cherish the doctrine when it is given to us 
finally, as it is, in the form of a divine revelation. 

In better language than any which we can com- 
mand has this thought been expressed by one of 
the poets ; and what he says is this : 

" The seed, the insentient seed, 
Buried beneath the earth, 
Starts from its dusty bed, 
Responsive to the voice of spring, 
And covers mead and mountain, 
Fields and forests with its life. 



Suggestions fr om Na ture. 115 

Myriads of creatures, too, that lay- 
As dead as dust on every inch of ground, 
Touched by the vernal ray, 
Spring from their little graves, and sport 
On beauteous wings in fields of sunnied air. 
Shall this be so? Shall plants and worms 
Come forth to life again? And 0, shall man 
Descend into the grave to rise no more? 
Shall he, the Master of the world, 
Image and offspring of the fontal life, 
Through endless ages sleep in dust?" 

Thus queries the poet, and his questions are in- 
tended to have all the force of affirmative convictions ; 
though, of course, as Ave have said, these analogies 
of nature do not prove that man will live again; 
they simply suggest that he may live again; thus, 
however, helping us to believe that he will live 
again, and making it difficult, on the other hand, 
for any reasonable man to believe that he will not 
live again. 



116 The Resurrection. 



II. 
From Day-break to Noontide. 

Nature leaves us in the day -break of hope — not 
by any means in the midnight of total darkness, but 
in the day -break of hope ; what she says being: " I 
can not assure you positively that the dead will rise 
again ; I can only say it is possible, and not un- 
likely, they will." 

That, however, which nature shows to be con- 
ceivable and possible, the Bible makes real and 
certain. "The hour is coming," our Savior says, 
" when all that are in their graves shall hear his 
voice, and come forth." In this passage we have 
neither the twilight nor the first roseate streaks of 
dawn, but the clear eifulgence of noonday. Hap- 
pily, too, this flash of noontide glory is typical of 
the clearness and prominence with which this fact 
of the resurrection is set forth in the Bible as a 
whole. The doctrine underlies both Scriptural his- 
tory and Scriptural prophecy. It is held by some 
that the patriarchs were ignorant of it. But if 
Abraham was not a believer in this doctrine, then 
how grossly must Paul have been mistaken about 
him ; for does he not say distinctly that in offering 



From Day-break to Noontide. 117 

up Isaac he accounted that God was able to raise 
him from the dead ? Job also hints at this resur- 
rection doctrine, not only in that passage which is so 
very familiar to us, but in another passage, in which 
he speaks of the dead going to their sleep in the 
grave — a sleep, he says, from which they shall not 
awake " until the heavens fall." For does not this 
word " sleep " carry with it, of necessity, the thought 
that there is sure to be an awakening at some time, 
and does not the passage, viewed as a whole, bear 
upon its face the obvious suggestion that this 
awakening, while it is certain to occur at the last 
day, need not be expected before that time? 

It is from this idea of a resurrection that the 
prophets borrow their loftiest imagery; and had the 
people not been familiar with such an idea — had it 
not been a matter of common faith and expectation 
with them, is it supposable that Isaiah would have 
illustrated the uprising of the Jewish nation from 
oppression by saying, " Thy dead men shall live ; 
together with my dead body shall they come forth?" 
or that Ezekiel would have set forth the wonders of 
Messiah's time by his vision of the dry bones, which, 
though they were very dry, still, under Divine ma- 
nipulation, developed into living bodies, and stood 
up to praise God? Others of the prophets, like 



118 The Resurrection, 

Daniel, speak of the resurrection in express terms. 
We know, too, that in our Lord's day belief in the 
resurrection of the dead was a leading article in the 
orthodox Jewish creed. And how can we account 
for this, excepting upon the assumption that such a 
belief had been handed down to them from former 
generations ? 

The reason we are so tenacious upon this point 
is, that if it could be proven that God's ancient 
servants were utterly without light upon a matter 
so important, and that the Scriptures of the Old 
Testament nowhere teach this doctrine, as some 
claim, such a situation would detract from the unity 
of the Scriptures, and would seem to reflect just a 
little, we venture to think, upon the Divine good- 
ness; for how unjust it would appear, to leave these 
people through so many ages in total ignorance of 
a doctrine which, to every rational mind, has so 
much comfort in it for the dark hours of bereave- 
ment! Manifestly, though, these Jews were not 
left in ignorance of this doctrine. We do not, of 
course, claim that the fact of a resurrection was so 
clear and definite to the prophets as to the apostles. 
It was not, nor could we reasonably expect it to 
have been. Like other important truths, it was re- 



From Day-break to Noontide, 119 

vealed to God's ancient people in shadows, dimly 
and indistinctly. 

Will any one, however, have the temerity to say 
that there is anything dim, anything uncertain, in 
the light thrown upon this subject through New 
Testament channels? If Christ taught anything 
with definiteness, he certainly taught that the hour 
is coming when there shall be a resurrection of the 
dead. Paul stakes the verity of the whole gospel 
system upon this truth. Christianity, he tells us, 
stands or falls by the question of whether or not 
there is to be a resurrection of the dead. If there 
be no resurrection, then, he declares, were he and 
his fellow-laborers following a miserable delusion; 
for, in that case, Christ had not risen. And not 
only does the New Testament affirm the fact, but 
it favors us with all necessary particulars. It as- 
sures us, for instance, that the resurrection will be 
universal in its extent, embracing all classes and all 
persons. Paul says there is to be a resurrection 
both of the just and of the unjust. Christ declares 
explicitly that "all" who are in their graves shall 
hear his voice, and shall come forth; and he adds, 
as though he were fearful some might still think he 
meant only all his own followers : " They that have 



120 The Resurrection. 

done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that 
have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." 

Another fact made known to us is, that these two 
classes will rise separately. " The dead in Christ 
shall rise first," we are assured. And elsewhere it is 
said : " Blessed are they that have part in the first 
resurrection." It is also intimated that this two- 
fold resurrection will occur after the second coming 
of Christ, and immediately prior to the last judg- 
ment ; while the further intimation is afforded that 
either just before the resurrection, or just after it, 
or simultaneously with it, a change will be wrought 
in those who are alive at that time. " We shall 
not all sleep," says Paul, " but we shall all be 
changed;" which means, as Biblical students gen- 
erally agree, that the forms of those who may be 
alive at that momentous crisis will undergo a trans- 
formation, accomplished by the power of God, 
which will cause them to correspond with the in- 
corruptible forms of those newly brought forth in 
resurrection splendor from their graves. 

These are things in reference to the resurrection 
which we may be said to know — matters regarding 
which, among evangelical Christians, there is scarcely 
any dispute. Touching another matter, however, 
there is fierce dispute, and the widest disagreement. 



The Resurrected Body. 121 



III. 

With what Body shall we be Raised ? 

In Paul's day the question was asked, " How 
are the dead raised up, and with what body do they 
come?" and this is the great question to-day. It is 
a natural question. We always want to know how 
a thing is done ; it is the nature of our minds to 
raise such an inquiry. It is a Scriptural question, 
too — not only asked in Scripture, but finding in 
Scripture an abundance of matter bearing upon 
its solution. It is also an intensely human ques- 
tion. They tell us that we are spirits — that the 
body is only an instrument through which the 
real self expresses itself. But even if we admit 
this, is it not still perfectly natural that this in- 
strument, which we use so constantly and which 
suits our purposes so well, should be au object of 
tender interest to us? Not only so, but we ven- 
ture to say that it is impossible for ordinary minds 
to think of themselves as existing without in some 
way connecting their existence with some of the 
functions of this instrument. Because, therefore, 
from long and close association with our bodies, we 
have come to regard them as a part of ourselves, 



122 The Resurrection. 

we are naturally and reverently curious to know 
what will become of them ; whether, after death, 
they return to dust like other matter, and so remain 
forever, or whether they will be raised in whole or 
in part, and continue in a changed form to be in- 
struments of expression for our spirits in the world 
eternal. This is the question; and when you bear 
in mind how strong is our attachment to the body, 
and remember at the same time the great dislike 
of human nature to believe, upon any authority, 
whether human or divine, anything which it can 
not fully understand, you will find an explanation, 
as it seems to us, at once of the great interest felt 
in this question and of the perverse views which 
some hold in spite of the teachings of Scripture 
with reference to it. 

As to what the teaching of Scripture really is, 
we must bear in mind that to express this idea of 
resurrection two Greek words are used, and two 
only, both of which are always rendered just as 
they are rendered in the New Testament, one of 
which always means rising and the other raising. 
Now, in opposition to all theories which deny that 
there is to be any proper coming forth of anything 
that has been deposited in the grave, we put these 
two words — the only words which New Testament 



The Resurrected Body. 123 

writers employ with reference to this subject — and 
we ask you candidly, if, on the assumption that 
nothing that was put in the grave is to rise again, 
or to be raised, these two words are not grossly 
misleading? 

Another fact to be remembered is, that repeatedly 
in the New Testament death is referred to under 
the figure of a sleep. The Savior and his apostles 
almost invariably represent it as a sleep. How sig- 
nificant, too, that this figure of speech should have 
been so frequently used on the tombs of the early 
Christians; for does not this suggest that to view 
death as a sleep was the common habit of those 
times, and is it not a reasonable inference that those 
who buried their dead in the catacombs of Rome, 
where this view finds such frequent and touching 
expression, had derived this idea from those who 
first learned it'at the feet of Him who said, "Our 
friend Lazarus sleepeth?" And what is the mean- 
ing of this figure of speech? What is it that 
sleeps? Not the spirit, certainly. It would be 
difficult to prove that the spirit sleeps, even when 
the ordinary sleep of night has fallen upon the eye- 
lids of the body ; and that it can not go to sleep at 
death is clearly shown by our Savior's promise to 
the penitent thief, " To-day shalt thou be with me 



124 The Resurrection. 

in paradise/' as well as by numerous other pas- 
sages. What, then, can be the possible significance 
of this figure of speech if it does not mean that 
the body sleeps, and that the body which has gone 
to sleep, or some essential elements of it, will be 
awakened and brought to life again ? 

Observe, too, how conclusive of this point is the 
argument from the resurrection of Christ. If his 
rising from the grave was a pledge and proof of the 
general resurrection, as Paul unquestionably re- 
garded it, then must it be also, in its essential fea- 
tures, an example of that resurrection, instructing 
us, to some extent, as to what the final resurrection 
of the dead will consist in. And need it be said 
that Christ's body came forth the same body essen- 
tially which was deposited in the tomb? To be 
sure it was changed, and yet it was the same ; still 
retaining, though without exposure to either suffer- 
ing or danger from them, even the fleshly marks 
left by his crucifixion — the prints of the nails in 
his hands and the sword-gash in his sacred side. 
Moreover, Christ's own words, already quoted, are 
conclusive of this point; for does he not refer 
specifically to the " grave," and does he not affirm 
in substance that the resurrected body, of whatever 
it may consist, shall issue from the grave? 



Difficulties Considered. 125 



IV. 
Difficulties Considered. 

This is impossible, you say; and you proceed to 
give the reasons why it is impossible. You tell us 
the old threadworn tale of bodies decaying, going 
into vegetables, and then, through the digestive or- 
gans, into other human forms, and so on, ad infini- 
tum, until, you say, the same particles have entered 
into the organism of a thousand bodies. But let 
us reflect a moment. Your argument is that this 
can not be so, because it does not conform to hu- 
man reason. See, however, where such a view as 
this will lead you. It is the rationalistic view. 
Carried to its legitimate conclusion, it will debar you 
from believing in anything you can not understand. 
But how unfair — to put the case in the mildest 
form — how unfair to assume that a Being who is 
infinite will always act in strict conformity with the 
preconceived notions of a being who is finite, and 
will do only such things, and say only such things, 
as a finite mind can fully comprehend? Why, there 
are men who know immeasurably more about some 
things than you and I do, and who could, doubtless, 



126 The Resurrection. 

do some things which we, in our ignorance, should 
consider antecedently impossible ! 

Thus, you argue from premises that are fallacious. 
You leave out of view the omnipotent power of 
God. The resurrection is to be a great miracle; 
and that means, you know, something entirely be- 
yond the scope of science; something contrary al- 
together to the established laws of nature; something 
which baffles reason and appeals only to our palpa- 
ble senses ; the surest proof that it can be, being the 
fact that it is, whether we understand it or not. 
The same rule which makes people ridicule the no- 
tion of a real resurrection, what a titter it would 
have provoked from these same objectors had any 
of them been present when God proposed to make 
man out of the dust of the earth ; and yet that man 
is made out of the same elements as the dust, with 
a spirit superadded, is to-day no more the teaching 
of Scripture than it is the conclusion of science. 

Imagine, too, how these objectors would have 
smiled when Christ talked of raising Lazarus. He 
had been dead four days. His body was decom- 
posed. The skin was discolored; the sinews and 
muscles were beginning to fall away. What before 
had been elastic had now become limp. The eyes 
were gone back from their natural positions. The 



Difficulties Considered. ' 121 

blood had become congealed in the whole arterial 
system. What nonsense to think that a machine 
which has degenerated into such a condition as that 
can ever be made to work as it did before ! So 
some would have argued; and yet, at the command 
of Christ, did not Lazarus come forth and resume 
at once the functions of a living being? Certainly 
he did, if the New Testament does not state as a 
fact something which never occurred. It is worth 
considering, too, whether the raising of Lazarus 
was not a greater miracle really than will be nec- 
essary to the raising of the dead at the last day ; 
for in his case, you will bear in mind, the entire 
physical organism had to be rebuilt. This organ- 
ism was needed in all its completeness for contin- 
ued use in the present life ; whereas in the case of 
the bodies which are to be raised on the final day 
of accounts those elements only will need to be 
called together which are essential to the future 
life ; as the apostle distinctly suggests when he 
says, " It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spir- 
itual body ; it is sown in corruption, it is raised in 
incorruption." 

Possibly, too, the theory which some hold that 
all the particles of the human body go into vegeta- 
tion and become parts of other bodies, might need 



128 The Resurrection. 

to be qualified, if we only knew a little more than 
we do ; for it may be that the essential particles do 
not enter into this process. And moreover, as some 
one else has ably suggested, "if God intends that 
there shall be a fixed affinity between the soul and 
its last investiture of matter, how do we know but 
that he is taking care, by the operation of some secret 
law, that the matter composing the last investiture 
of one person shall not be organic at death in the 
body of any other person ?" 

Fortunately, though, we are not required either 
to fully understand this doctrine or to satisfactorily 
explain it. We are to take the fact upon the bare 
statement of the word of God. If that which is 
revealed comports with reason, all the better of 
course; that is, it will in that case be easier both 
for the mind to grasp what is said and for the heart 
to rely upon it. It is inevitable, however, that in 
a system of religion which is based upon a succes- 
sion of miracles there will be many things tran- 
scending reason. Not contravening reason — we do 
not admit that — but simply transcending the present 
capabilities of reason. For, given the unlimited 
power of God working according to his own will — 
by laws as we know them, or above such laws and 
in spite of them — given this, and the product can 



Difficulties Considered, 129 

scarcely be contrary to reason, be it what it may, 
the creation of man out of dust, or the resurrection 
from the dead of a human body, the minute parti- 
cles of which have been scattered to the four winds 
of heaven. 

The trouble with all theories advanced in op- 
position to the plain statements of Scripture is that 
they present us with something as a substitute for 
Biblical resurrection which is not a resurrection at 
all. To hold that the real self is spirit and nothing 
else, and that this alone will live in the future 
world, is to hold either that the spirit dies and is 
brought to life again, or it is to hold that nothing 
comes to life again, and that, therefore, our Savior, 
when he speaks of those who are in their graves 
coming forth, uttered something which has no mean- 
ing. So with the idea that God clothes the spirit 
with a new body. That would be no resurrection ; 
it would be a creation. So, too, with the theory ot 
some that at the last day the human spirit will 
clothe itself with a new body from sources that are 
most convenient to it, and that identity will be pre- 
served by the fact that the spirit will impress its in- 
dividuality upon the new particles just as it did upon 
the old. This is a beautiful idea, and if it were only 
the will of God it might answer well enough. But 



130 The Resurrection. 

need we remind you again that such a process 
would not be in any proper sense a resurrection ? 

Ah, my friends, we prefer God's plan to all 
these finely-spun theories of man. We may not 
understand it fully; but when it comes from him 
we can surely afford to accept it. We can not deny 
that it presents difficulties to a finite mind ; but we 
might reasonably expect such things in plans ema- 
nating from an intelligence that is infinite; and all 
these difficulties, any one who admits the omnipo- 
tence of God, and who views the resurrection as a 
miracle, may surmount at a single bound, without 
either straining faith or doing the least violence to 
reason. 



Questions Answered. 131 



V. 

Some Interesting Questions Answered. 

Will it, then, you ask, be the same body we 
have worn in life with which we shall come forth 
at the resurrection ? The same, we reply, and yet 
marvelously changed. Much, no doubt, will be left 
behind. All grossness will — all those things in our 
bodies which appertain to the lower appetites, as 
well as every element which makes the body sus- 
ceptible to disease and death ; for Paul tells us 
that we shall no longer be either corruptible or 
mortal, while Christ assures us that in the resur- 
rection there will be neither marrying nor giving 
in marriage, but that we shall be, in this respect, 
as the angels of God. 

But how about our physical deformities? some 
one asks. Will this poor body be crippled in the 
other world as it is now? And we reply: As these 
deformities are purely physical, arising from the 
fact that our bodies are susceptible to disease, it 
is but reasonable to assume that they will disap- 
pear after the body has been redeemed from dis- 
ease and made immortal. If in the resurrection 
divine power shall overcome death itself, surely it 



132 The Resurrection. 

will have no difficulty in overcoming the bodily 
infirmities which were the precursors of death, and 
which arose from the fact that we lived here under 
the impending curse of death. Still we shall not 
speak positively upon this point. How can we, re- 
membering that our Savior's resurrected body still 
had upon it the marks of his crucifixion ? Of one 
thing, however, we are quite positive, and that is 
that if these marks of human infirmity are retained 
in the other world, they will give us neither pain 
nor annoyance. In fact, they will be, in that case, 
no longer marks of infirmity, but marks of super- 
natural beauty — scars of honorable service, which 
we shall have been allowed to carry with us from 
the earthly conflict into the heavenly triumph, be- 
cause they will be needed there as a palpable illus- 
tration of the power of redeeming grace. 

But what about the development of the body in 
the resurrection? Longfellow sings beautifully of 
the reunion he anticipates with the dead lamb of 
his fold: 

" Not as a child shall we again behold her ; 
For when, with raptures wild, 
In our embraces we again enfold her, 

She will not be a child ; 
But a fair maiden in her Father's mansion." 



Questions Answered. 133 

Thus sings one of our divinest poets. But we think 
it not unlikely Longfellow has found out since then 
that he was mistaken in this view, as, no doubt, 
when we get into the fuller light of the skies, we 
shall all find we were mistaken in very many of 
our views. Can we conceive, however, when we 
descend from the heights of poesy to the practical 
platform of reason and common sense, that the 
infant form which we have cherished so fondly and 
which we so fervently desire to see again will come 
up on the resurrection morning in the stature of full- 
grown manhood? We do not doubt that there will 
be a proces of development both before the resur- 
rection and afterwards. We are sure that when 
they emerge from the grave they will be no longer 
the ailing and helpless things they were when we 
last saw them ; for they will come up, like the rest 
of us, in forms renewed, sublimated, and spiritual- 
ized. But do not ask us to believe that there will 
be in the other world no bodies wearing still the 
sweet garb of infancy ; for so fondly did Christ love 
these little ones when he was upon earth, and so es- 
sential does their presence seem to the happiness of 
all good people, that heaven, as the matter appears 
to our thought, would scarcely be heaven, either for 



134 The Resurrection. 

Him or for us, under such conditions as those. As 
some one has well sung, 

"A dreary place would be this earth 
Were there no little children in it; 
The song of life would lose its mirth 
Were there no infant voices to begin it." 

And precisely thus do most people feel with refer- 
ence to the existence awaiting us and the music 
which is to charm us in those scenes celestial. 

And still the question recurs, With what body 
shall we come forth? But we can not answer this 
question. Tell us what the glorified body of Christ 
is, and we may then tell you what the bodies of his 
resurrected and glorified people will be. Truly, 
however, as John says, "It doth not yet appear 
what we shall be; but we know that when he shall 
appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him 
as he is." 



Comforting Lessons. 135 



VI. 
Comforting and Wholesome Lessons. 

Yes, we believe in the resurrection of the dead, 
and we like the view which the Scriptures give, and 
which the Apostles' Creed holds out, of the resur- 
rection of the body. We think it a most salutary 
view. It affords a strong incentive for the proper 
care and development of the body. It emphasizes 
PauPs admonition against defiling the body. If 
these bodies are to be ours only until we die, they 
are of comparatively little consequence ; but if, after 
burial, something within them, held by God to be 
essential to our perfect identity, is to be raised again, 
then they are worth all the attention and all the 
cultivation we can possibly bestow upon them. 

We see in this doctrine, also, a strong plea for 
the decent treatment of the body after death — a 
justification of the emblems of beauty with which 
we adorn our cemeteries, and of that blessed senti- 
ment in the human heart which prompts us to keep 
the resting-places of our departed verdant with 
springing grass and bright with blossoming flowers. 
We see in it, also, a strong argument against the 
cremation of dead bodies. Not that this would 



136 The Resurrection. 

render their resurrection any more difficult; for 
where divine power is enlisted, one thing is no more 
difficult than another. The point is, however, that 
to subject the body to the destroying flames is dis- 
respectful to the body itself, and a contravention, 
besides, of the manifest order of God, which con- 
templates, not our incineration, but the gradual 
resolving of our mortal remains into their original 
elements by the operation of nature. The fact is, 
cremation is paganish — the Christian mode of dis- 
posing of the dead being to bury them. 

When, too, the Savior speaks of those who are 
in their graves hearing his voice and coming forth, 
we can not help feeling that that settles beyond a 
doubt the question of future recognition ; for we 
know those whom we put in their graves. We 
know what they were like. To be sure they had 
changed greatly in death ; but we still knew them, 
and we feel certain we shall know them hereafter, 
spite of the still greater change the resurrection 
will make. Very beautifully has one of the poets 
expressed this thought: 

"And shall I e'er again thy features trace, 
Beloved friend ; thy lineaments review ? 
Yes; though the sunken eyes and livid hue, 
And lips compressed, have quenched each lively grace, 



Comforting Lessons. 137 

Death's triumph ; still I recognize the face 

Which thine for many a year affection knew ; 

And what forbids that, clothed with life anew, 
It still on memory's tablet hold its place ? 
Though then thy cheek with deathless bloom be sheen, 

And rays of splendor wreathe thy sunlit brow, 
That change, I deem, shall sever not between 

Thee and thy former self; nor disallow 
That love's tried eyes discern thee through the screen 

Of glory then, as of corruption now." 

See, too, how this certainty of the resurrection 
of the dead will inevitably operate to temper the 
sorrow of the bereaved, and to irradiate with the sun- 
light of a divine hope the tears of every mourner ! 
O, my friends, there is a grief for the dead which 
is heathenish; it is the grief which refuses to be 
comforted. And such grief is quite excusable in 
those whose vision is bounded by the dark con- 
fines of the grave. Surely, however, Christians — 
those who lay their dead to rest in certain hope of 
resurrection and of future reunion — such as these 
surely should not grieve as the heathen do. Upon 
this point some poet has tenderly and appropriately 
admonished us as follows: 

"Weep for the dead! God bids you not restrain 
What nature claims, affection's soothing tear. 
But weep like Christian mourners ! Tho' the bier 
Bear him away to death's obscure domain, 
Yet he, with you who still on earth remain, 



138 The Resurrection. 

The summons of the Archangel's voice shall hear; 
And he, with you, before the Lord appear, 
Soar to the clouds and meet you there again. 
Weep then, but do not as the hopeless weep." 

Finally, as there are to be two resurrections — 
one of the just, the other of the unjust — let it be 
ours to do justice and to love mercy, to walk hum- 
bly with God, and to live for the glory of his Son, 
that so we may have part in the first resurrection, 
and may enter with all the redeemed through the 
gates of that beautiful city, of which we are as- 
sured that the Lamb is the light thereof, and where 
Christ himself shall lead us to fountains of living 
water. 



V. 

The Problem of Suffreing. 

IF GOD IS LOVE, WHY DOES HE ALLOW GOOD 
PEOPLE TO SUFFER ? 



" Hath God forgotten to be gracious ? hath he in anger 
shut up his tender mercies ? Selah. And I said, This is my 
infirmity ; but 1 will remember the years of the right hand of 
the Most High. 

— Psalm lxxvii, 9, 10. 

" And we know that all things work together for good to 
them that love God. 

—Romans viii, 28. 



THE PROBLEM OF SUFFERING. 



If God is Love, why does he allow Good 
People to suffer? 

^T^HE pivotal word in our quotation from the 
■*• Psalms is one which in ordinary interpreta- 
tions of Scripture is entirely overlooked. It is the 
word " Selah " — a word which means, according to 
the best light we can obtain, that that which has 
just been said is something to which calm and seri- 
ous consideration ought to be given. In the former 
part of this passage the writer exhibits a complain- 
ing and even skeptical disposition. His afflictions 
had been such that it began to appear as though 
God was dealing ungraciously with him. This feel- 
ing, held in restraint for a time, finds expression at 
last. In his bewilderment, in his incipient unbelief, 
in his semi-despair, as we might almost call it, the 
psalmist exclaims, " Hath God forgotten to be gra- 
cious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mer- 
cies?" Then, as though the utterance of the thought 

had shown him like a flash how improper and un- 

141 



142 The Problem of Suffering, 

holy it was, he immediately puts a restraint upon 
both heart and lip by the use of this word, " Selah." 
As though he had said, — What is this sentiment 
to which I have given utterance ? In what feel- 
ings did it originate ? What is its full significance ? 
Upon what grounds does it rest, and whither does 
it tend ? Let me not be hasty in this matter, but 
let me pause and reflect — " Selah — Selah !" 

Thus arrested by that sober second thought 
which is so essential to wise conclusions, he does 
pause and reflect. That, too, with the most grati- 
fying result; for his reflections work an immediate 
change in his feelings. He sees now that it is not 
God, but himself who is to blame. "And I said," 
he observes — when meditation has brought him to 
a correct view of the case — " this is my infirmity." 
This complaining mood, this depression, this semi- 
despair, is the result of my natural weakness and 
ignorance. But I will endeavor, he adds, to rise 
above it, and in order to this I will recall the evi- 
dences of the Divine goodness. " I will remember 
the years of the right hand of the Most High." 

The course to which the psalmist summoned 
himself by the use of this word " Selah," is that 
which in similar exigencies s'hould be pursued by 
ourselves. " If God is love," we ask, " why does 



Why do Good People Sufeer ? 143 

he allow good people to suffer 2" This problem of 
suffering perplexes us. We are not surprised that 
people suffer as a penalty for their own sins. We 
think it perfectly natural that the wicked should 
suffer. What surprises us is that the good should 
suffer as they do ; that wave after wave of tribula- 
tion should be allowed to roll in such mad fury 
over the lives of those who love Christ and whose 
obvious desire is to please and serve him. Not 
only does this surprise us, but in some instances it 
shakes our faith a little. We are unable to under- 
stand it, and there are times when in our haste and 
perversity we are inclined to think it is hardly right. 
Especially prone are we to such feelings as these 
when the iron enters our own soul, or the suffering 
casts its pall over our own dwelling. That Chris- 
tian man of business, for instance, who, notwith- 
standing his unquestioned integrity, is buffeted by 
continual reverses ; that bright and pious girl, w T ho, 
just as she emerges into the charmed realm of 
womanhood, finds herself in the grip of some con- 
stitutional disease; that Christian mother, bending 
in agony over the cradle of a suffering babe ; those 
aged parents, whose glistening locks are no whiter 
than their saintly characters, but who, spite of their 

purity and life-long devotion, are at last hurried in 

10 



144 The Problem of Suffering. 

sorrow toward the grave by the crime of a prodigal 
son or the shame of a wayward daughter, — how prone 
are such as these, and others in like circumstances, to 
be perplexed, and at times even skeptical ; and how 
often, in thought, if not in words, do they inquire 
dubiously, "Hath God forgotten to be gracious?" 
To all these, however, and to those who may 
sympathize with them, we bring in this chapter a 
message of reassurance. It is expressed in this 
word, " Selah." What we suggest is, that they 
pause and reflect; that instead of yielding to pas- 
sion or unbelief, they look at the matter calmly and 
reverently; and that they follow us, with all the 
attention and all the faith they can command, in 
the few considerations we shall offer with the ob- 
ject of throwing light upon this difficult problem. 



Review of Fundamental Facts. 145 



I. 

A Calm Review of Fundamental Facts. 

One thing necessary in judging of the ways of 
God with his people is, that we take into careful 
consideration the earthly conditions with which he 
has to deal. Suppose you were a skillful performer 
on the piano-forte, and suppose you were invited to 
play on an instrument of that description newly 
purchased by some friend. " Come," says this 
friend, "and discourse to us from my new piano 
those enrapturing strains we have heard you pro- 
duce on other occasions." "Certainly," you say; 
and at the appointed time, well supplied with choice 
music, you repair to your friend's dwelling. " Now," 
says he, " we shall hear that which will delight us ;" 
and he ushers you into the parlor where the new 
instrument awaits your artistic manipulation. Sup- 
pose all this, and then suppose that when the lid 
of the key-board is lifted you find that some enemy 
has disarranged and mutilated that part of the piano. 
Suppose, also, that you find, upon further exami- 
nation, that the wires and cords have met a similar 
fate. What would you do in such a case? Where, 
then, would be the sweet music demanded by your 



146 The Problem of Suffering. 

host and anticipated by his guests? What the use 
of your great skill in playing if no better instru- 
ment could be found upon which to exhibit it than 
the broken thing before you? 

Human life is the instrument, and God is the 
performer. Ah ! if we were only what man was at 
the beginning — if the world and human creatures 
were but now what they were when he first looked 
at them, and could not help pronouncing them very 
good — then you would, indeed, hear music that 
would enrapture you! But the instrument has 
been broken. An enemy came and threw every- 
thing into disorder. Sin entered the world, and, 
by sin, death and all forms of human suffering. 
To press into service a somewhat famous political 
phrase, God is met, in his dealings with man, not 
by a theory, but by a condition, and that condition 
is aptly symbolized by the situation of the artist 
who is asked to produce good music from a broken 
and battered instrument. 

We must remember, too, how all this came 
about, and why it is that this sad condition of af- 
fairs still continues. We were not forced into this 
abyss of misery ; we deliberately walked into it. 
Man sinned of his own volition, when there was 
everything in his situation to encourage and help 



Review of Fundamental Facts. 147 

him to continue happy by remaining virtuous. To 
have withheld from man the power to sin would 
have been to deprive him of the crown of his in- 
telligence. He would then have been but a higher 
form of the brute species, without the liberty of a 
free agent, and therefore without responsibility 
for his actions. Even the angels could sin, and 
some of them did. The question is asked some- 
times, if it would not have been possible for God 
to have made man without the capability of sinning. 
We reply, He could, without doubt, have made a 
creature of that kind; but to have fashioned in such 
a mold this human creature who was to be a fit 
companion for himself and for the angels, and 
whose existence was to run parallel with his own — 
we can not conceive that that would have been 
possible. 

But some one else will ask, Why does not God 
stem the tide of human suffering by making man 
over again? Let him give the race another chance. 
Once more let him start us in existence pure and 
happy, and see what the result would be. Well, 
what, in all probability, would be the result in such 
a case? Is there anything in human history favor- 
able to the supposition that if man were put back 
in Eden, just as he was at first, he would do any 



148 The Problem of Suffering. 

differently than in the former instance? To ns it 
seems that everything in human life favors the 
opposite idea. And if this be so, would you have 
God blot a race out of existence, and give up as 
hopeless the effort to reclaim mankind, merely to 
try another experiment, which would probably, if 
not certainly, result in the end just as disastrously 
to man as did the former one? 

Thus we can not in justice charge our human 
miseries upon the Creator. They were self-inflicted, 
and were inflicted, too, when there was no occasion 
for such a course on man's part, but when, instead, 
everything within him and everything about him, 
with the exception of one single malign influence, 
the presence of which was necessary to the com- 
pleteness of his manhood, counseled and stimulated 
him to an opposite course. 

People talk of human suffering as if it were a 
direct infliction by the hand of God. Good and in- 
telligent people talk in this way sometimes. But 
how monstrous is such an idea, and how very far 
from the truth ! Human suffering is the result of 
human transgression. It is the outgrowth of laws 
set in operation ages ago, by the introduction into 
the world, against the Divine will and counsel, of 
that father of miseries which we call sin. The in- 



Review of Fundamental Facts. 149 

strument is perverted from its original design. It 
is battered and broken — that is the reason it gives 
such poor music. We must not blame the musician. 
We should not say, when the head throbs, and the 
nerves tingle, and the bones ache, that God is send- 
ing illness upon us; for, excepting in a very remote 
sense, that is not so. It is because we belong to a 
race perverted by sin, and live in a world blighted 
by evil — that is why we get sick, and are hurried 
by disease into the grave. 

So when disgrace and grief come as the result 
of some base act on the part of those related to us. 
How can we justly call this a visitation from God, 
when we remember that God, far from influencing 
that dear one to do wrong, has been striving con- 
stantly, in ten thousand ways, to entice his erring 
footsteps into paths which would have led him to 
honor and happiness? So, too, when our cherished 
ones are removed from us by death. It is a debt of 
nature people pay when they die. Shall we say, 
when a fond mother grieves over the untimely 
death of her sweet babe, that it is God who has 
thus afflicted her, as though the child's death were 
chargeable to some direct and arbitrary act on God's 
part? To be sure, he takes into his gracious keep- 
ing, when the body yields it up, the bright spirit of 



150 The Problem of Suffering. 

our dead darling. But the child dies as the result 
of natural laws ; the only connection of our Heav- 
enly Father with such an event being — so far as we 
can speak with any assurance — that he allows it, 
and that he is ready now, if we will let him, to 
make the bereavement a blessing to us. 

Thus the misery that comes to good people, like 
that which comes to bad, arises from the fact that 
we are so constituted that we can not help suffering, 
and are living in a world where suffering is the 
universal penalty of broken law. Stretch wires 
across an open space anywhere when the wind is 
blowing, and then listen attentively , and there will 
not fail to steal into your senses, like the soft music 
of a dream, those minor cadences which poets call 
the strains of the iEolian harp. Why is this, do 
you ask? Enough to answer that the -world is 
made that way, and that, given the presence of the 
wind and wires in that particular relation, the re- 
sult could not be otherwise. And most strikingly 
does this illustrate the condition which God meets 
in seeking the happiness of those who love him. 
What he finds is, that in this world their sensitive 
and responsive natures are so played upon by the 
winds of adversity that those minor strains, the 
strains of suffering, they put forth are not only nat- 



Review of Fundamental Facts. 151 

ural, but are, in the present constitution of things, 
unavoidable. 

But the question will be asked, Could not God 
prevent his people from suffering by working a 
miracle in their behalf? To which we reply, How 
could he render us impervious to suffering, without 
making us, both in body and mind, totally different 
from what we are at present? And if he did so 
completely re-make us, what probability would there 
be, unless everything about us should be equally 
changed, that we could continue to exist in a world 
like this? Think, too, if we were lifted above suf- 
fering, what kind of creatures we should be. Fancy 
a mother who could look into the unanswering 
face of her dead babe without a tear of sorrow or a 
pang of regret. Fancy a man who could contem- 
plate without grief the moral ruin of a cherished 
friend ! Fancy parents unmoved to anguish at the 
sight of a son immured in a felon's cell, or a daugh- 
ter making shipwreck of virtue ! Are not these, 
however, precisely the kind of beings into which 
God would have to transform human beings, did he 
lift us entirely above the level of human suffering? 

Thus, the conditions are bad, irremediably so, 
while sin shall remain in the world; and, to recur 
again to our original symbol, it would be just as 



152 The Problem of Suffering. 

unreasonable to expect that even the Almighty 
himself could produce music from the human heart 
wholly unmixed by the discords of suffering, as to 
expect any performer, even the most skilled and 
perfect, to evoke the unbroken harmony of sweet 
sounds from a broken and disordered musical in- 
strument. And this is what we mean when we say 
that, in judging of the ways of God with his people, 
the earthly conditions must be taken into account. 



A Fa ctor in Human De vel opment. 153 



II. 

Suffering as a Factor in Human Development. 

Another important point to be considered in the 
discussion of this question is that of design. What 
is the Almighty's design concerning us? In a 
jewelry-shop through which we were shown, we 
saw a friend take numerous pieces of precious 
metal, and hold them in a blazing fire. They were 
black when they were put into the fire, and, if any- 
thing, still blacker when they had cooled off, after 
being taken out; and, so far as we could see, being 
only a novice, this process was quite useless, if not 
destructive. When, however, we beheld, in the 
pattern-book that was handed to us, the finished 
article, and were assured that the operation we had 
witnessed was necessary to the production of this 
thing of beauty, we saw the matter in its true light. 

My friends, when you and I rummage through 
the workshop of the Supreme Architect of the uni- 
verse, and find, here and there, things which seem 
to baffle our feeble understandings, or to stagger our 
poor, weak faith, let us not fail, before we venture 
an adverse opinion upon any of these processes, to 
ask the Master Workman to show us his pattern- 



154 The Problem of Suffering. 

book, aud to vouchsafe to us, if he will be so kind, 
a few words of explanation. Let us only do this, 
and greatly as we may have been perplexed at first, 
we shall see then that God's way, after all, is better 
than our way, and shall be willing, doubtless, to let 
his great workshop still go on in the same old man- 
ner, not only without hindrance, but without sug- 
gestions, and, indeed, with a full and most hearty 
concurrence on our part in all that is done. 

God's pattern-book is the Bible, and you will 
find in this book, not only a sketch of what he 
wants us to become, but a clear explanation, also, of 
the different processes by means of which his designs 
concerning us are to be carried out. 

One of God's designs is the development of 
character. He wants to make us strong — strong in 
our religious convictions and in our Christian faith ; 
strong in endurance and in the ability to help our 
fellow-creatures. This is one purpose God has in 
view; and is it not in harmony with all analogy, 
as well as with the teachings of Scripture, that such 
strength as this should be attainable only by hard 
and painful discipline? If the steel gains its sup- 
pleness by being beaten upon the anvil; the bow 
its flexibility by being often bent; the oak its 
power to defy the hurricane by rough usage in 



A Factor in Human Development. 155 

many storms; the muscle its corded firmness by 
long and tiresome exercise; the intellect its vigor- 
ous grip upon great themes by patient and even 
painful discipline in the school, or by the midnight 
lamp ; if suffering, or processes which nearly al- 
ways involve suffering, are necessary to strength 
within these realms, how could we reasonably ex- 
pect it to be otherwise within the realm of char- 
acter? And, in harmony with this view, do we not 
find that the greatest sufferers have been, as a rule, 
the greatest saints, and that the periods when 
Christian character has reached its highest pitch of 
vigor have been the periods when the Christian 
profession, not only did not lessen suffering, but 
rather added to it, by exposing its devotees to 
martyr fires and to the rage of wild beasts? 

Another element in strong character is sympathy. 
It would, perhaps, be no more than the truth to say 
that man becomes great only in proportion as he 
feels for his fellow-man, because it is only in pro- 
portion as he feels for him that he will desire to help 
him. Development on any other line means growth 
in a direction that leads away from the ordinary 
level of humanity. But growth in sympathy means 
development toward man rather than away from 
him. If, then, sympathy be so necessary, how shall 



156 The Problem of Suffering. 

it be obtained? Not, certainly, by the mere con- 
templation of human sorrow; for experience shows 
that familiarity of this kind leads only to indiffer- 
ence. If to simply see suffering made people sym- 
pathetic, you would expect the physician in yonder 
hospital to have one of the most sensitive natures in 
the world. Yet the fact is, his nerves are like iron. 
Ah! the Almighty understood what was necessary 
to beget true sympathy. He understood, too, how 
essential was sympathy to those who would win the 
hearts and improve the lives of their fellow-men. 
Hence, as we read, " It became him, in bringing 
many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their 
salvation perfect through suffering." 

Inevitably, too, this being the Divine plan, it 
will be found to comport with human experience 
and to be justified by human history. And is there 
not an instinct in the human heart which impels it 
in its times of sorrow to seek comfort in the bosoms 
of other afflicted ones? And does not this feeling 
always find in such people a prompt and satisfactory 
response? Have we not known men to sit in con- 
versation for hours — strangers though they were be- 
fore — held together by the discovery that they had 
passed through similar experiences of suffering? 
Have we not observed, when widow meets widow, 



A Factor in Human Development. 157 

or when mothers, recently bereft of children, meet 
others who have trodden the same low vale of sor- 
row — have we not noticed in such cases how long 
the two will remain in affectionate embrace, how 
tender their mutual confidences, how sweet and 
how effectual the words of pity and of hope the) 7 ex- 
change? And what does all this mean but that 
suffering begets sympathy, and that sympathy is, in 
its turn, an indispensable requisite to all who would 
be useful and helpful to their fellow-creatures? 

And now, does not the design justify the process? 
If God uses suffering to make men strong, and then 
uses it, as the jeweler uses the fire and the chisel, 
to temper strength with tenderness or to adorn it 
with beauty, producing in the final result charac- 
ters the most grand, the most godlike, the most 
Christly in this universe — men and women who, 
like their Master after he was lifted up in cruci- 
fixion, become moral and social magnets in the 
world, lifting up and drawing toward themselves, 
toward God, and toward heaven, their downcast 
and sorrowing fellow-creatures, — if the result of 
human suffering is so gracious, so glorious as this, 
do n't you think we would better let the process go 
on, and not trouble the Almighty with any com- 
plainings or any questions in regard to it? 



158 The Problem of Suffering. 



Ill: 

Utility of Suffering in the Work of 
Salvation. 

Anothek point to be considered is the part 
which suffering plays in furthering the work of 
human salvation. Can any one doubt that if there 
had been fewer beds of sickness, there would have 
been fewer prayerful hearts than there have been ? 
Does it not seem to be almost self-evident that 
many would never have gotten to the cross had 
they not been led to it by a sad journey through 
some graveyard? Will it be questioned that the 
only thing which has saved many a man from losing 
his soul has been the fact that in some business mis- 
fortune he lost his money? Is it not proverbial 
that the afflictions of life are all so many preach- 
ers of righteousness to our hearts, and that often 
their voice is more effectual than the most earnest 
pleadings from the sacred desk ? Is it not an ob- 
vious fact that many people, and even some pro- 
fessedly Christian people, are inclined, when all 
goes well with them, to forget God, and to throw 
off the restraints of moral accountability ? And 
would not this seem to indicate that if everything 



Utility of Suffering. 159 

should go well with us all the time, we not only 
should be no better than we are, but should prob- 
ably be worse? 

But for that failure in business, with the humil- 
iation of spirit attending it, that merchant, profess- 
edly a Christian though he was, might have be- 
come utterly worldly. But for the sad circumstance 
which threw into mourning the household of that 
Christian woman, who knows, remembering the 
trend of her life previously, that she would not 
have been by this time, instead of the meek, strong 
saint she is, a leader in fashionable dissipation ? 
Why, that severe attack of illness, which seemed 
such a cruel dispensation when it first came, proved 
in the end to be the greatest blessing which ever 
befell us; for, as all our friends could testify^, we 
emerged from the experience looking as bright and 
fresh religiously as the face of nature looks when 
the sun breaks forth after a summer rain-shower. 

Thus, while it may be true that our sufferings 
are weights, yet they are not weights which hold us 
down to the earth ; but, as some one has aptly put 
it, they are like weights which have undergone a 
certain mechanical adjustment. They lift us up- 
ward to the skies. God wants us to fly toward 

himself, and he presses suffering into his service as 

11 



160 The Problem of Suffering. 

a means of bringing this about. The eagle, when 
her young are of a proper age, begins by degrees 
to pick their nest to pieces, and if they still cling 
to this shelter she is not long in destroying it al- 
together. This, that the eaglets may fulfill the pur- 
pose of their being by taking wing and soaring off 
into the great empyrean. And similarly does God 
allow our nests to be picked to pieces by suffering, 
that thus, our earthly delights being removed, the 
spirit within us, which came forth from himself, 
and which can only be satisfied by his grace, may 
wing its flight by faith and love toward the place 
where finally we are to see him and be like him. 

Think, too, how God uses the fortitude shown 
by the good under trial and suffering, to recommend 
his religion to the thoughtless and wicked. Henry 
Ward Beecher has well said upon this point : " You 
may put all the skeptical men that ever lived on the 
face of the earth on one side, and they may plead 
in my ears; and all the scientists may stand with 
them and marshal all the facts of the universe, to 
disprove the fact of Immanuel — God with us ; and 
yet, let me see my mother walking in a great sor- 
row, but from the surface of her sorrow reflecting 
the light and cheer of heavenly hope — patient, sweet, 
gentle, full of comfort for others — and that single 



Utility of Suffering. 161 

instance of suffering, patiently borne, is more to me, 
as an evidence of the truth of Christianity, than all 
the arguments that the wisest men can possibly 
bring against it." So speaks one of the master- 
minds; and who can help feeling that in this esti- 
mate he expresses the honest conviction of all 
minds? Who, moreover, can avoid the conclusion 
to which we are pointed by this estimate regarding 
the utility — and one might almost say, the neces- 
sity — of suffering in the spread of the gospel? 

Really, but for the fortitude it gives in trouble, 
what is there that religion does for us in this life 
which would recommend it, in any obvious or 
palpable form, to our fellow-men? In what do 
Christians differ from others if not pre-eminently 
in the way they conduct themselves under suffer- 
ing? Blot out from the pages of history the blood- 
red lines traced therein by the bleeding feet of the 
Lord's anointed, and where would be the relig- 
ious achievements which are our boasted heritage 
at the present time ? What if the martyr-fires had 
never been kindled? What if no beasts of prey 
had ever glared in savage hunger upon the calm 
face of Christian virtue? Can any suppose that in 
that case Christianity would have attained to uni- 
versal sway in three centuries? And the Eeforma- 



162 The Problem of Suffering. 

tion — what progress would that have made, spite of 
Luther's theses or of Melanchthon's learning, but 
for the many who took joyfully the spoiling of 
their goods, and went cheerfully to the stake — those 
blessed bearers of unmerited suffering, of whom it 
is our just boast to-day that the blood of the mar- 
tyrs was the seed of the Church ? 

Here, again, does the jeweler's pattern-book 
come into requisition. It is the purpose of God to 
save the human race from sin ; and suffering, we 
find, is an important, if not, indeed, a necessary 
agent in bringing this about. It would seem, too, 
as though a special part had to be played in this 
work by the suffering of the good — those whose 
trials have been to so many a cause of perplexity; 
for the facts we have considered show unmistak- 
ably that the sufferings of such as these, besides 
contributing to their own religious steadfastness, 
serve, at the same time, by the patience and forti- 
tude they evoke, to recommend religion in the most 
forcible and palpable manner to their fellow-men. 



Magnifies Divine Mercy. 163 



IV. 
How Suffering Magnifies the Divine Mercy. 

Still another thing to be considered is the way in 
which human suffering magnifies the Divine mercy. 
How alarmed we should have been if, last evening, 
we had seen the sun set and the darkness gather for 
the first time! Afterwards, though, as, in their set- 
tings of light and glory, the jeweled hosts of heaven 
began to appear, we should have been reconciled ; 
and night, showing us so many beauties we had not 
seen by day, would have been accepted as a welcome 
and blessed change. So we naturally grow uneasy 
upon the first appearance of trouble. But when 
trouble shows us, glistering in the firmament of the 
Divine mercy, so many exceeding great and precious 
promises, of the existence of which we had scarcely 
dreamed in the noontide of prosperity, how can we 
help feeling that trouble is our friend rather than 
our enemy, and that he who permits it to come to 
us gives us therein but another token of his loving- 
kindness ? 

For some time, in our earlier manhood, scarcely 
anything gave us a keener sense of regret than the 
sight of weeping children. The least thing, we 



164 The Problem of Suffering. 

observed, would start a tear in childhood's sympa- 
thetic eye ; and we used to feel sorry, and were in- 
clined to think that for such dear little innocents 
to be so frequently the subjects of distress was 
hardly consistent with the fact of God's love for 
them. Experience, however, has brought us to a 
different view. From what we have seen in our 
own home, and in other homes where domestic 
affection is not restrained, we have become fuJly 
convinced that childish sorrows are more than 
counterbalanced by parental comforts. And now, 
whenever we see on childhood's innocent face these 
fleeting clouds of distress, Ave think at once what 
such an experience will shortly mean to the little 
sufferer — the embrace of affection it will call forth, 
and the whispered words of motherly tenderness it 
is sure to evoke. This is what trouble means to the 
child. Yes, and let me remind you that this — all 
this, and infinitely more — is what trouble and suffer- 
ing mean to the people of God. Who can doubt 
this, with the promise ringing in his ears, " Like 
one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort 
thee, saith the Lord?" 

Consider, too, how abundantly effectual is the 
comfort which God affords us in our sufferings, and 
how this fact must operate, if we look at the case 



Magnifies Divine Mercy. 165 

reasonably, to silence our complainings when we 
presume to sit in judgment upon him. The reason 
the British Government was so severely censured 
for the death of General Gordon at Khartoom, was 
because they had sent him upon a painful and 
hazardous expedition without having provided him 
with adequate means of protection. Now, if it can 
be proven that God keeps his people exposed to the 
sufferings of this unfriendly world without adequate 
means of sustenance and comfort, then, we grant, 
there will seem to be some ground for questioning 
the righteousness of his dealings with us. If, how- 
ever, it be true — as all history attests, and all ex- 
perience demonstrates — that our mission here, like 
that of Gordon, who went to pacify the Soudanese, 
is a good one, and that though we are exposed to 
pains and perils in the execution of this mission, 
yet, that the great Being who sends us forth sees to 
it that we do not want for any good thing ; that 
every trouble has its solace, every woe its balm, 
every weakness its revelation of strength, and every 
moment of danger his own mighty arm of deliver- 
ance ; if this be our situation — as it unquestionably 
is — then the troubles of life, far from militating 
against the Divine love, are but so many proofs of 
the reality of that love, and are things, the con- 



166 The Problem of Suffering, 

templation of which, instead of provoking the 
question, savoring so strongly of unbelief, "Hath 
God forgotten to be gracious?" should incite us to 
inquire, rather, out of hearts overflowing with 
gratitude : "What shall I render unto the Lord for 
all his benefits toward me?" 



In the Light of Eternity. 167 



V. 

Viewing the Problem in the Light of Eternity. 

Finally we throw into the scales in th*e adjust- 
ment of this issue the weight of eternity. Why 
should we not? Did not our Savior do this? Is 
it not said of him that for the joy that was set be- 
fore him he endured the cross? Is not this, more- 
over, the course to which we are summoned by the 
Apostle Paul ; for does he not say, " Fight the 
good fight of faith;" and then does he not imme- 
diately add — as though in this expression he would 
show us by what means Christian valor may be 
most surely obtained — u Lay hold on eternal 
life?" 

The athlete, entered for the Grecian races, had a 
severe time of it while his training was in progress. 
But he fortified himself against present hardships 
by the thought of what the future might bring — 
the applause of gathered thousands, the laurel- 
wreath placed on his proud head by the fair hand 
of beauty, and the fame he might possibly enjoy in 
all the supervening years. In like manner should 
the thought of what the future will bring — not of 
what it may bring, but of what we positively know 



168 The Problem of Suffering. 

it will bring — cheer the heart and brighten the lot 
of those who have entered for the Christian race. 
And O, my friends, if there be indeed a time of coro- 
nation awaiting us — a time when we shall certainly 
exchange the hardships of our present probation- 
ary state for the blessedness and glory of an eternal 
triumph ; if these things are indeed in reservation 
for us, laid up for our recompense by the forethought 
of our Heavenly Father, the only condition of their 
bestowment being our patient endurance as Chris- 
tians of the sufferings of the present life; if there 
is no mistake in this matter, — then what a marvel- 
ous light is thrown by this fact upon some of our 
greatest earthly perplexities, and what conclusive 
proof is thus afforded that God can be a God of 
love, notwithstanding that he allows good people to 
suffer; that, indeed, the sufferings of his saints, 
viewed in the light of the glory to which they lead, 
are our best earthly pledges of his love ! 

Relating to this very point, we have in Paul's 
writings, drawn for the comfort of suffering Chris- 
tians, one of the most striking contrasts ever ex- 
pressed in language-. This light affliction, he tells 
us, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a 
far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. 
Think of it! Here affliction; there glory. The 



In the Light of Eternity. 169 

affliction is light; the glory is a weight of glory. 
This light affliction is but for a moment; the 
weight of glory is an eternal one. Nor is this all. 
It were surely sufficient. Think of it — an eternal 
weight of glory to offset the light affliction of the 
present, which is but for a moment ! What more 
could any one ask? And yet, just when you feel 
that the picture is complete and the effect abun- 
dantly satisfactory, this Master Artist takes his brush 
and gives the outline three additional touches, assur- 
ing us that the glory which our sufferings are to 
work out, besides being weighty in quality and 
eternal iu duration, will also be an "exceeding," a 
" more exceeding," and even a " far more exceed- 
ing and eternal weight of glory." Think of it ! 
Climb to the top of this climax, if you can, and 
then look down, just to see how utterly insignifi- 
cant the sufferings of the present will appear when 
we view them from the serene heights of our future 
blessedness. 



170 The Problem of Suffering, 



VI. 

Concluding Observations. 

From these serene and glorious heights we look 
again at that passage in the Psalms, the pivotal 
word of which is the word " Selah." It opens with 
a seeming reflection upon the Divine love. But the 
psalmist checks himself in this train of thought. 
He summons himself to a calmer and more thorough 
consideration of these great matters, the result being 
that he soon attains to a clearer vision and a better 
spirit. " This is my infirmity," he says. " I am 
wrong; God is right. God has not forgotten his 
people; the only trouble is, we too often forget him. 
In a word, God is love, though good people do 
suffer — equally so when he allows affliction to come 
to us as when he casts our lives in ways of pleas- 
antness and peace." 

Such was the psalmist's conclusion ; and O that, 
in every time of mystery and under every ex- 
perience of suffering, a similar conclusion may be 
reached by all ! Let us never again say, " Hath 
God forgotten to be gracious ?" If ever we are in- 
clined to say this, or even to think it, let us check 
ourselves by saying, "Selah ;" and in the moments 



Concluding Observations. 171 

of reflection which we shall thereby secure, let us 
" remember the years of the right hand of the Most 
High." Thus let us trust God where we can not 
trace him; and let us constantly strengthen our- 
selves in such trust by the blissful certainty that, 
by and by, faith being swallowed up in sight, we 
shall not only know all, but shall just as surely 
approve all. As the poet has so beautifully said: 

11 Sometime, when all life's lessons have been learned, 

And sun and stars for evermore have set, 
The things which, our weak judgments here have spurned, 

The things o'er which we grieved with lashes wet, 
Will flash before us out of life's dark night, 

As stars shine most in deeper tints of blue, 
And we shall see how all God's plans are right, 

And how what seemed reproof was love most true. 

And we shall see how, while we frown and sigh, 

God's plans go on as best for you and me, 
How, when we call, he heedeth not our cry, 

Because his wisdom to the end could see ; 
And even as wise parents disallow 

Too much of sweet to craving babyhood, 
So God, perhaps, is keeping from us now 

Life's sweetest things, because it seemeth good. 

And if sometimes, commingled with life's wine, 
We find the wormwood, and rebel and shrink, 

Be sure a wiser Hand than yours or mine 
Pours out this portion for our lips to drink. 

And if some friend we love is lying low, 
Where human kisses can not reach his face, 

0, do not blame the loving Father so, 
But wear your sorrow with obedient grace, 



172 The Problem of Suffering. 

And you shall shortly know that lengthened breath 
Is not the sweetest gift God sends his friend ; 

And that sometimes the sable pall of death, 
Conceals the fairest boon his love can send. 

If we could push ajar the gates of life, 
And stand within, and all God's workings see, 

We could interpret all this doubt and strife, 
And for each mystery find a key. 

But not to-day. Then be content, poor heart ! 

God's plans, like lilies pure and white, unfold ; 
We must not tear the close shut leaves apart ; 

Time will reveal the calyxes of gold. 
And if, through patient toil, we reach the land 

Where tired feet, with sandals loosed, may rest, 
When we shall clearly see and understand, 

I think that we will say, ' God knew the best.' n 



VI. 

The Unpardonable Sin. 

IS THERE A SIN WHICH HATH NEVER FOR- 
GIVENESS? 



" Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blas- 
phemy shall be forgiven unto men ; but the blasphemy against 
the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whoso- 
ever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be for- 
given him ; but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, 
it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, niether in 
the world to come." 

—Matthew xii, 31, 32. 



VI. 

THE UNPARDONABLE SIN. 

Is there a Sin which hath Never Forgiveness ? 

/ T V HE words quoted on the opposite page seem 
-*■ to teach that in the vast catalogue of offenses 
which man may commit against the Divine Being, 
there is one sin which can never be forgiven. And 
the words, we must bear in mind, are the Savior's 
own words. So that if they do teach this doctrine 
of an unpardonable sin, they announce it upon the 
authority of one who could not possibly have been 
mistaken in what he said, and from whose conclu- 
sions in such a matter no appeal can be taken. 

How significant, moreover, that this utterance of 
Christ should have been preserved in the writings 
of all of the evangelists! Matthew, Mark, and 
Luke, each give it in their respective Gospels, and 
each in precisely the same connection. We may 
reasonably believe, too, that John would have done 
the same had his Gospel been intended, like those 
of the others, as a history of our Lord's life. But 

the fourth Gospel was written, as we are well aware, 

12 175 



176 The Unpardonable Sin. 

not from the historic, but from a theological point 
of view. Naturally, therefore, it omits some things 
which the others are careful to record ; and among 
the things omitted is this reference of Christ to the 
unpardonable sin. Even John, however, refers to 
this sin in his later writings; otherwise what can he 
mean when he says there are sins which are not 
unto death, and there is one sin which is unto 
death ? 

Thus each of the four evangelists preserves this 
utterance of Christ in some form ; indeed they all 
preserve it in essentially the same form. And this 
fact is very significant; for it proves conclusively, 
not only that Christ uttered the words, but that 
they were put forth by him in an impressive man- 
ner, that they produced a profound effect upon the 
listeners, and, furthermore, that they were regarded 
by his disciples as an important contribution to the 
system of truth he wished to establish for the 
guidance and salvation of mankind. 



Is an Unpardonable Sin Possible? 177 



Is an Unpardonable Sin Possible ? 

Now, what does this passage teach ? Does it teach 
that there is really a sin which is unpardonable? 
Suppose it does teach this — what then ? Will any 
one claim that there is anything in such a doctrine 
contrary to nature or repugnant to reason ? How 
is it with human governments touching this mat- 
ter? Do we know of one, did we ever read of one, 
which does not hold some offenses to be beyond the 
pale of forgiveness? Does not the law in every 
land say, at some point, " Thus far shalt thou go, 
and no farther?" 

Now, we are not so foolish as to hold, simply be- 
cause this is a universal fact in human governments, 
that therefore a similar arrangement will of neces- 
sity be found in the Divine government — not at all. 
What we maintain is, that as human governments 
are conducted on these principles, that fact renders 
the supposition that God conducts his government 
on the same principles a not unreasonable one. And, 
of course, when it is remembered that this feature 
in human affairs finds its sanction in the teachings 
of Christianity, and is shown by experience to be 



178 The Unpardonable Sin. 

conducive to the good of society, the argument is 
greatly strengthened. 

It must also be conceded that this doctrine of an 
unpardonable sin, besides not being contrary to hu- 
man reason, does not contradict at all the Bible 
doctrine of the Divine mercy. As a matter of fact, 
we do not deserve forgiveness for any sin. Every 
act of pardon is an act of God's free grace. Think, 
too, how much he pardons ! Think how many trans- 
gressions he is willing to condone ! And can we 
in reason deny to a Being who is so very long-suf- 
fering — to one who overlooks so much — the right 
to determine if, at some point, he shall not place a 
barrier in man's path, and say, Pass this, and you 
shall no more be counted worthy of my forgive- 
ness? Not only can God do this and still be just, 
but we may well question whether strict justice does 
not make it necessary for him to pursue such a 
course ; and as to his mercy, if only one sin, or one 
class of sins, is unpardonable, as these words of 
Christ seem to teach, and all others, even to count- 
less myriads, are subjects of gracious remission on 
his part, such a situation would surely seem, by 
force of contrast, to heighten, rather than lessen, 
the Divine mercy. 

Nor do we find anything contrary to the suppo- 



Is an Unpardonable Sin Possible? 179 

sition of an unpardonable sin in the doctrine of a 
universal atonement; for the atonement wrought 
by Christ does not make the pardon of sin uncon- 
ditional. On the contrary, before its benefits can 
be realized, there is something to be done on the 
human side. It goes without saying, also, that there 
are many who, by failing to meet these conditions, 
put themselves beyond the reach of the atonement. 
And if, without detriment to the sufficiency of this 
sacrifice, men for whom Christ died are lost by 
their refusal to do that which is necessary to save 
them, why should it be held to detract from the ef- 
ficacy of this atonement to say that others are lost 
through some overt and outrageous act of trans- 
gression ? Here, again, nothing is proven ; but 
these considerations, if they do no more, at least 
prepare the way for proofs of this doctrine ; for if 
it has been successfully shown that neither in Scrip- 
ture, in reason, nor in human life, is there any insu- 
perable objection to this idea of an unpardonable 
sin, but that, on the contrary, there are many things 
in each of these realms rendering such a doctrine 
not improbable; if this be really so — and it surely is 
so — then our observations thus far have indeed per- 
formed the office of a John the Baptist for us, and 
we are ready now, with unprejudiced minds, to make 



180 The Unpardonable Sin. 

our final appeal upon this subject to the distinct 
testimony borne by Christ in the passage already 
quoted. 

What, then, does this passage mean ? Is there 
such a thing as the unpardonable sin ? and if there 
be, what is it? So far, you will observe, we have 
simply said that our Savior's words seem to teach 
the doctrine of an unpardonable sin. Now, how- 
ever, our minds having been prepared for such a 
statement, we have no hesitancy in saying that 
they do teach this doctrine. There can be no doubt 
that they do. There never has been any doubt that 
he did. Upon this point the opinions of those who 
have given serious and intelligent thought to the 
matter are in perfect agreement. Hence we shall 
not dwell upon it, but shall occupy ourselves rather 
in urging, and in trying to answer, the inquiry — so 
natural to us and so very important to our welfare — 
as to what this unpardonable sin is. 



Is Such a Sin Possible? 181 



II. 

Is such a Sin Possible at the Present Day ? 

In regard to this point opinions are sadly divided. 
Some hold that the sin against the Holy Ghost con- 
sisted in attributing Christ's miracles, which were 
performed by the power of the Holy Ghost, to the 
agency of Satan. This is what some of the Jews 
had done. " He casteth out devils," they said, " by 
the prince of devils;" and it was in the course of 
his indignant answer to this charge that our Savior 
warned his hearers of this unpardonable sin. Those 
who think this the special sin which Christ pro- 
nounces unpardonable, hold also that it is a sin 
which, in. the nature of the case, could only be 
committed by those who were witnesses of Christ's 
miracles. 

But if this was so, one wonders why the Savior, 
knowing the sin to be only possible in that age, 
did not expressly say so. You will notice, however, 
that his language is very general. It is not at all 
the language we should have expected him to use 
had he been speakiug of a particular act committed 
there and then, and only possible to a restricted 
number, within a given period of time, but precisely 



182 . The Unpardonable Sin. 

the language we should have expected him to em- 
ploy in warning his hearers against something to 
which the whole race would be liable. He does n't 
speak of this blasphemy against the Holy Ghost — 
he speaks of the blasphemy. He uses also that 
generic and all-embracing term, men — "All manner 
of sin and blasphemy shall.be forgiven unto men; 
but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not 
be forgiven unto men." Now, why did he speak in 
such general terms if he meant merely that only a 
few men were capable of committing this awful 
iniquity? You will notice, too, that his language 
appears to be in the future tense. He does not 
appear at all to be speaking of something that has 
been done, but seems to have in mind something 
which may be done. Besides, if this unpardonable 
sin was a sin possible only in the time of Christ, 
and even then only to a certain class, how comes it 
that so many years after Christ's death the Apostle 
John is found writing about an unpardonable sin ; 
and why, moreover, does the author of the Epistle 
to the Hebrews refer to an unpardonable sin? 

Thus the idea that this sin against the Holy Ghost 
was a special sin, possible only to those who enjoyed 
the special privilege of personal association with 
Christ, is not satisfactory, and we can not accept it. 



Is Such a Sin Possible? 183 

Another idea is, that Christ, when he spoke of 
the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost which should 
never be forgiven, had solely in his mind those who 
should be witnesses of the miracle of Pentecost, and 
who, after seeing that miracle, should attribute what 
they saw, as many did, to the agency of the powers 
of darkness. But this explanation has even less to 
support it than the other; for that those who mis- 
understood and misconstrued the conduct of the 
disciples under the influence of the great baptism 
of Pentecost had not committed the unpardonable 
sin, is shown by the fact that Peter aud others be- 
gan at once to call them to repentance, and that 
there and then three thousand of them were con- 
verted and baptized. Then, too, if the words had 
only a local application, why did the Divine Spirit 
cause them to be preserved for the contemplation 
of succeeding ages? Much that Christ said has 
passed into oblivion ; why, then, if they were of so 
little account to us — if they were to be out of date 
almost as soon as written — were not these words 
about the sin against the Holy Ghost allowed to 
take this course? Instead of this, however, we 
find the words held up prominently to view by each 
of the four evangelists. We find, too, that pious 
people in all ages have given a great deal of atten- 



184 The Unpardonable Sin. 

tion to them, and that amongst a certain class they 
have caused an anxiety of mind which has amounted 
to absolute torture. 

Now, must not the Almighty have foreseen all 
this; and if he did, is it reasonable to suppose he 
would have allowed such words to remain, to be for- 
ever a source of anxiety to human beings, had they 
referred to a sin which no human being could have 
committed since the day of Pentecost? For one, we 
can not think this. Try as we may to convince our- 
selves that these words are out of date, we can not 
do it. On the contrary, we are compelled to believe 
that they are not out of date ; that, in other words, 
there is an unpardonable sin ; that not only was an 
offense which hath never forgiveness possible in 
Christ's time and in the days of the apostles, but 
that such an iniquity is possible in this day, has 
been possible in all ages since the gospel dispen- 
sation first began, and will remain an awful possi- 
bility so long as time shall last. 

If, however, any one shall ask, What is this sin 
which is unpardonable? we are forced to admit that 
we can not tell. We are not wise beyond what is 
written, and upon this point the Scriptures are sig- 
nificantly silent. Still, God's word does tell us some- 
thing about this sin. 



In What Does It Consist? 185 



III. 
In what does the Unpardonable Sin Consist ? 

Note, first, that it is a sin against the Holy 
Ghost; and see the propriety of this. This Holy 
Spirit is the administrator of the plan of redemp- 
tion. God devised it, Christ procured it, and the 
Spirit brings it to our hearts. Then, this Spirit is 
almost invariably spoken of as the Holy Spirit ; as 
though he were in a peculiar sense the embodiment 
of that divine attribute. This Spirit, moreover, 
would seem to be different from the other member- 
of the Trinity in another particular. Tell me, my 
friends, if you ever read anywhere in the Bible of 
this Holy Spirit of God ever becoming angry. We 
read often of the wrath of the Father, and some- 
times of the wrath of the Son ; but who ever read 
anywhere of the wrath of the Spirit? He is all gen- 
tleness — all tenderness. The Father uses the rod 
sometimes in punishment; so also, occasionally, 
does the Son take the whip of chastisement in his 
hands ; but the nearest approach to hostility against 
man of which the Spirit seems to be capable is that 
of being vexed and grieved. And who, my friends, 
when these things are considered, can help seeing 



186 The Unpardonable Sin. 

an exquisite propriety in the fact that it is against 
this most holy, this most gentle, this most tender 
Spirit that the only sin can be committed which is 
held by Almighty God to be forever unpardonable ? 

Notice, again, that this sin, whatever else it may 
be, would seem to be some sin committed by that 
unruly member, the tongue. Christ says distinctly 
that it is " speaking words " against the Holy Ghost. 
To be sure he intimates, by his figure of the tree 
and the fruit, that the words spoken correctly rep- 
resent the inward feelings. Still, the words give 
expression to the sin, and the words, according to 
Christ's teaching, are necessary to the sin. Hence, 
we say, this unpardonable sin would seem to be 
some sin of the tongue, and well may we exclaim 
regarding that member, with this fact in mind — as 
James cries out in one place — " Behold how great 
a matter a little fire kindleth !" 

Notice, furthermore, that this unpardonable sin 
is not an ordinary transgression, but an extraor- 
dinary and most outrageous transgression. It is 
something which amounts to blasphemy ; and to 
blaspheme, as any dictionary will tell you, is to 
speak of the Supreme Being in terms of im- 
pious irreverence. Notice, too, that according to 
Christ's teaching, it is blasphemy of a pecu- 



In What Does It Consist? 187 

liarly enormous and aggravated kind. "All man- 
ner of sin and blasphemy/' he says, "shall be 
forgiven unto men." All manner — that, we may 
well suppose, means that all blasphemy against the 
Father shall be forgiven, and as to himself, Christ 
distinctly says that " whosoever shall blaspheme 
against the Son of man shall be forgiven." His 
meaning, of course, being that they will be for- 
given if they repent and change their course. But 
the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, he says, 
" shall not be forgiven, neither in this world nor 
in that which is to come;" plainly implying, as we 
have already said, that the unpardonable sin is a 
sin of extraordinary enormity — worse, in the Divine 
estimation, than blasphemy against either the Father 
or the Son. 

Still, however, does the question recur, What is 
this sin ? And to that question no definite answer 
can be given. God himself gives us no light on 
that point. Doubtless, too, he has withheld precise 
information in regard to it for wise and beneficent 
reasons. Had he plainly pointed out this sin, we 
can well imagine that many would have been em- 
boldened thereby to presumption. " Here," they 
would have said, " is the only spot in the universe 
upon which unholy feet may not tread and still hope 



188 The Unpardonable Sin. 

to be forgiven. Let us but avoid this pitfall, and we 
can go to every other extremity of wickedness with 
impunity ." Happily, however, such presumption is 
not allowed. God has chosen to be silent in this 
matter. And thus are rebellious feet checked in 
their career of evil, and wicked hearts held in awe, 
and vile lips bridled to some extent by the whole- 
some fact that somewhere, at some point — the precise 
location of which the Almighty has thought it well 
to conceal from them — there is a pit awaiting those 
wandering steps, which has no bottom to it ; a depth 
of evil yawning before that depraved heart, from 
which neither the power nor the mercy of God can 
ever extricate it; some thought, some monstrous 
thought, waiting a convenient opportunity to spring 
into expression from those unholy lips, the awful 
blasphemy of which shall never be forgiven, neither 
in this world nor in that to come. 



Knowledge of Committing this Sin. 189 



IV. 

How may We Know whether or not we have 
Committed this Sin ? 

To the question, How are we to know whether 
or not we have committed this sin? our reply is, 
That the surest way to avoid committing this sin is 
to not willfully commit any sin ; and that the most 
satisfactory evidence any one can have that he has 
not committed this sin, is the assurance that he is 
saved — washed from all sin in the blood of the 
blessed Christ. While, however, these are the best 
assurances that this sin has not been committed, there 
are others upon which we may rely; and, really, 
the situation is such that good people not only have 
no occasion to despair, but do not need to be even 
alarmed. 

Those who are not good do need to be alarmed, 
because, while they remain in sin, their constant 
progress is downward, and because, while a man is 
sinking and while he continues to sink, he can not 
possibly know at what point he will stop. If there 
be an unpardonable sin, and if men now are ca- 
pable of committing it, and if we do not know 
precisely what that sin is— then, what we maintain 



190 The Unpardonable Sin. 

and what we wish to emphasize is, that every 
wicked man ought to be apprehensive, and ought 
to tremble for fear that at some time that awful 
blasphemy, with its eternally irremediable conse- 
quences, may be committed by himself. 

As to the fear some entertain that they have 
committed this sin already, the very concern of such 
as these is, as a rule, one of the best possible indi- 
cations that they have not thus involved them- 
selves; for it is only reasonable to assume that when 
a man has committed a blasphemy against the Holy 
Ghost so heinous as to be unpardonable, the good 
Spirit, thus shamefully reviled, will leave him, the 
inevitable consequence, in such a case, being that 
the man will become utterly calloused, destitute of 
fear, and entirely without concern. 



What Classes Commit this Sin? 191 



V. 

What Classes are Most Liable to Commit 
this Sin ? 

In looking about us for those who might reason- 
ably be suspected of having committed this unpar- 
donable sin, we should not take you to lunatic 
asylums, where maniacs prate of a despair which 
arises simply from a disordered brain ; nor to those 
sensitive souls whose desire to please God is so 
strong that they are afraid they have committed 
this sin when they have done the least thing for 
which conscience accuses them; nor to that man at 
the altar of the Church who might say to you — as 
men have said to us — " I should like to be saved, 
but I have no feeling, and it seems as though there 
was no hope for me." We are not certain that we 
should even seek for such persons in any of our 
sanctuaries of worship; for attendance at church is 
an indication, generally speaking, that men are not 
wholly hardened, and that the Spirit has not en- 
tirely left them. But if we wished to find those 
who might be suspected of having probably com- 
mitted this basphemy against the Holy Ghost, or of 

being liable to commit it, we should go to those 

13 



192 The Unpardonable Sin. 

dens of iniquity where human beings, who were 
once pure as the sons and daughters in any of our 
families, are lost now to all sense of decency and 
shame, where every breath is an oath, and every 
new oath is viler than the one preceding it. Nor 
should we stop there; but we should continue our 
search amongst those who were once Christians, 
and who had that indubitable evidence of the truth 
of Christianity which those only enjoy who are 
made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and who now, 
fallen utterly from grace, have become impious 
deniers of the faith which once saved them, and 
shameless revilers in others of those virtues and 
feelings which are the fruits of this Holy Spirit. 
We should go also among some of our business 
houses, into our places of questionable amusements, 
and into drinking resorts, in search of men who, 
though accounted respectable, turn their back upon 
the Church, scoff at the Bible, revile Christianity, 
and hold its professors — who are what they are by 
the power of the Holy Ghost— to be lunatics and 
fools. These, my friends, are the classes amongst 
whom we should seek for those who are likely to com- 
mit this unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost j 
and we ask you to consider, bearing in mind how 
few of these classes are ever reached by the gospel, 



What Classes Commit this Sin? 193 

how few of them ever seem to repent, how few of 
them in the dying hour have any light to rob the 
grave of its gloom, — we ask you to consider, bear- 
ing in mind the fact that so few of these people 
ever seek pardon, if the supposition that some of 
them have committed this sin against the Holy 
Ghost, or, at least are likely to commit it, is not 
an entirely reasonable one? 

And now, in closing, we emphasize again the 
overflowing fullness of the Divine mercy. Think 
how many sins He forgives ! Think how aggravated 
are the offenses he is willing to condone! Think 
how long he bears with his rebellious creatures! 
"How can I give thee up?" he says to the way- 
ward one. "How can I give thee up?" O, it 
grieves his heart to give us up ! It grieves God 
more to give up the sinner than the fondest mother 
is grieved when compelled at last to give up the 
hopes she has cherished for the child who is a part 
of her own life. So let none despair who have the 
least desire to be saved ; for never yet did any poor 
soul cry to God for pardon that the cry of the 
penitent was not instantly heard; and never yet, 
anywhere in the universe, was there an anxious, 
seeking sinner who did not find himself folded and 
shepherded at last in the strong but gentle arms 
of a loving and seeking Savior ! 



VII. 

Guardian Angels. 

WHAT MAY WE REASONABLY BELIEVE WITH RE- 
SPECT TO SUCH BEINGS? 



"For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep 
thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, 
lest thou dash thy foot against a stone." 

—Psalm xci, ii, 12. 

"Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minis- 
ter for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" 

—Hebrews i, 14. 



VII. 

GUARDIAN ANGELS. 

What may we Reasonably Believe with Re- 
spect to Such Beings? 

TF the reader should ever be in New York City 
"*■ on a sunny, genial day, and should not be oc- 
cupied with business, we strongly advise him to go 
out to Central Park and study nature — particularly 
human nature. Portions of the park are set apart 
as play-grounds for children. You will find here 
none of those tantalizing signs, " Keep off the 
grass;" for the proper thing in these sections is to 
keep on the grass. And the children, you may be 
sure, are not backward in doing this. On warm 
days you will find hundreds of them enjoying this 
privilege — little folks of all sizes, from the tiny 
babe who sits in a perambulator, cooing and play- 
ing with its rattle, to the boys and girls of larger 
growth, who romp about the scene like frisking 
lambs. 

You will notice, too, that these playing children 

are not alone. Scattered through the scene of bright- 

197 



198 G uardian Angels. 

ness and gayety you will see here and there persons 
who are older, and whose attire, equally with their 
occupation, will mark them out as those who have 
the little folks in charge. For the most part, these 
are nurses. Into the keeping of these attendants 
were these children tenderly committed, not long 
ago, by those who fondly love them. Many were 
the words of caution uttered as the delighted little 
ones were sent forth from the family dwelling. Re- 
peatedly were the nurses charged to take care of 
them; and not only are the children to be protected 
from harm, but the nurses are to take special care 
that at the proper time every mother's darling is 
brought home again. Yes, and the probabilities 
are that in every case this will be done. Not, how- 
ever, without risk. Some of those childish feet may 
stumble on the homeward journey; but what of that, 
if nurse have the little hand firmly grasped in her 
own? The larger children, running ahead, may 
make wrong turnings ; but what of that, if the voice 
of the attendant be promptly raised to call them 
back. It will not be without an effort, perhaps, that 
in the crowded throughfares of a great city some of 
those thoughtless little ones will be kept from dis- 
astrous collisions with pedestrians, or even from 
getting under the wheels of passing vehicles ; but it 



What We May Believe. 199 

is to prevent such occurrences as these that the 
nurses are employed. That is their business. As a 
rule, therefore, you can rely upon them to keep close 
watch over their precious charges, and the presump- 
tion is that no catastrophe will happen either going 
or returning. 

But what connection has this, some one will ask, 
with the subject of guardian angels? Well, the play- 
grounds in Central Park, where so many confiding 
parents send their children for health and comfort, 
we compare to this great world, into which the 
Father in heaven has sent his human children; and 
the nurses are symbolic to our thought of the angels, 
into whose care, in large measure, God's children 
have been committed. The analogy will not hold 
in all points — no analogies do — but in its general 
aspects the figure is a good one. And what is best 
of all, it is strictly Scriptural. This view of the 
angels is not a matter of the imagination ; it is a 
matter of fact. It is the germinal idea of the pas- 
sage we have quoted from the Psalms. All com- 
mentators agree that it is. " He shall give his angels 
charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They 
shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy 
foot against a stone." Thus speaks one of those 
holy men of old, who "spake as they were moved 



200 Guardian Angels. 

by the Holy Ghost," and, as all are agreed who have 
studied the words reverently and intelligently, the 
idea they are intended to convey is, that as nurses 
have children in charge, so do the augels have in 
charge God's children. 



Opinions Respecting Angels. 201 



I. 

Current Opinions Respecting Angels. 

This subject of guardian angels is one, it may 
be assumed, upon which we have all bestowed more 
or less of thought; and yet how few of us have defi- 
nite convictions in regard to it! That there are 
augels — vast multitudes of them — we are fully per- 
suaded. No believer in the Bible can doubt this for 
a moment. Another point equally well settled is, 
that the angels are spirits; that though at times 
in the world's history they have been permitted to 
take on the semblance of humanity, yet that their 
normal state is a spiritual and to us an invisible 
one. Another fact upon which we are agreed is 
that angels are superior to human beings in the 
grade of their intelligence. This is clearly taught 
in the statement that man, although he is crowned 
with glory and honor, was still made " a little lower 
than the angels." It is implied, too, in the fact 
that the angels who kept their first estate have been 
from the beginning the immediate associates of 
Deity, while man has been allowed only occasional 
and partial approaches to the Divine Being. Upon 
these points our minds are clear, confusion be- 



202 Guardian Angels. 

ginning to arise only when we begin to consider 
the probable occupation of the angels and the part 
they perform in the ordinary affairs of mankind. 

The idea is held by some that the angels do 
hardly anything but sing. They certainly are rep- 
resented as singing a great deal. They sang at the 
creation ; they sang at the nativity ; and, according 
to the Apocalypse, they sing frequently in heaven. 
Hence the idea some have that they are singers 
only ; that while occasionally they have engaged in 
other occupations, yet that God made them primarily 
to be a sort of professioual choir to keep the uni- 
verse vocal forever with his own praises. Need we 
remind you, however, that such a notion as this has 
no countenance in either Scripture or reason? 
How could we reconcile such an idea with what we 
know of the character of God ? To suppose him 
capable of creating an order of intelligences like 
these for no other purpose than to laud his own ex- 
cellences in ceaseless song would be to make him 
one would think, the embodiment of selfishness 
rather than the incarnation of love. 

Another erroneous view of the angels is that 
which supposes them to be employed in carrying 
forward the great processes of nature ; for if God 
intended these angels to be his helpers in the 



Opinions Respecting Angels. 203 

material sphere, why is there no suggestion of this 
kind in the Bible? Instead of this, however, is it 
not a fact that we invariably find these intelligences, 
whenever they are introduced to our notice, per- 
forming a part in history and in the affairs of men, 
rather than in the affairs of the material universe? 
Still another view is, that while angels are unques- 
tionably a factor in human affairs, yet that their in- 
fluence is general rather than particular, and is ex- 
erted only when a great crisis may arise ; while still 
another view is, that, even admitting them to exert 
a particular influence upon individuals, it is not at 
all the influence which springs from constant per- 
sonal companiouship, but is intermittent and ca- 
pricious, brought to bear upon us only in emergen- 
cies of extreme individual peril. 

Such are some of the ideas, more or less erro- 
neous, which are current among mankind in regard 
to angels. Others could be mentioned; but we 
forbear, our p'urpose being to show, not what the 
Bible does not teach in regard to these intelli- 
gences, but what it does teach, and what, in conse- 
quence, human belief ought to be with respect to 
them. 



204 Guardian Angels. 



II. 

Angelic Activity in Human Affairs. 

That which first strikes us as we approach the 
Biblical treatment of this subject is, that the Bible 
has in it so many allusions to angels, and gives us 
an account of so much that these creatures have 
done. You call the Bible a revelation of God. 
Some one else calls it a revelation of man. Let 
me remind you, however, that, with equal propriety, 
the book might be called a revelation concerning 
the angels. Let me remind you, furthermore, that 
next to what it tells us of God and of man, it has 
more in it respecting angels than upon any other 
theme. It is worthy of remark, too, how intimately 
and constantly, in the events of Biblical history, 
this Trinity of intelligences — God, man, and the 
angels — lock hands in united effort. Take out of 
the Bible all the occurrences in which the angels 
figure, and how little comparatively would be left! 

Of course the account of the creation would have 
to go, because, as God himself tells us in the book of 
Job, the angels and the morning stars in concert fur- 
nished the grand symphonies on that interesting oc- 
casion. We should lose, also, much that is inter- 



Activity in Human Affairs. 205 

esting and beautiful from the life of Abraham ; and 
how could we spare from even so eventful a life as 
his the visits made to his tent by those strangers who 
proved to be but angels in disguise? How inexplic- 
able, too, with no vision of angels to throw light 
upon it and no wrestling angel to account for the 
great change which occurred in it, would be the life 
of Jacob ! Take out all the events in which angels 
figured, and Sodom and Gomorrah go, with their 
emphatic and lurid testimony to the divine indig- 
nation against sin. How much also should we lose, 
on the same principle, out of the history of the chil- 
dren of Israel ! Moses and Joshua would both be- 
come smaller in our eyes than they are. And how 
the prophets would dwindle! With no augels to 
stop the mouths of those ferocious beasts of prey, 
where would be Daniel emerging in triumph from 
the den of lions? With no form celestial to walk 
with them, where those heroic youths who passed 
unscathed through the fiery furnace? 

And while this is so with reference to the Old 
Testament, it is even more so, if possible, as regards 
the New. The interest which the angels took in 
Christ is one of the most conspicuous of all the 
facts of gospel history. Man gave him but a cold 
welcome when he came. There was no room for 



206 Guardian Angels. 

him at the inn — there was little room for him in 
human hearts. " He came unto his own, and his 
own received him not." But O, what a stir his 
coming made in angelic ranks, and how these 
watched and ministered to him from the beginning 
of his sad life to the end and final triumph ! 

It was an angel who announced to Mary that she 
would become the mother of this Blessed One. And 
after he was born, how the angels followed him ! 
Take from his life the incidents in which these fig- 
ured, and how unsatisfactory, how unintelligible it 
would be ! No singing angels, no Bethlehem 
shepherds wakened to the glad announcement that a 
Savior had appeared. No angel warning, no flight 
into Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod, and that 
the prophecy might be fulfilled, " Out of Egypt have 
I called my Son." 'Notice, too, that after the temp- 
tation in the wilderness, and again after the agony 
in Gethsemane, angels came and ministered to 
him. We do not read of angels ministering to 
Christ amid the agonies of Calvary ; and possibly it 
was the absence of these heavenly attendants, who 
had been so faithful to him before, that extorted 
the cry on that occasion, " My God, my God, why 
hast thou forsaken me?" The angels, however, 
were not wanting at the grave. They were more 



Activity in Human Affairs. 207 

constant than even the women after our Lord's 
death. Angelic hands rolled the stone from his 
sepulcher while it was yet dark, and while the 
women, on their sad journey, were wondering 
how that great impediment ever could be removed. 
And afterwards an angel, standing at the open 
door of this empty tomb, proclaimed to the world 
the glad fact, " He is risen." Still later, too, 
did an angel stand by as his disciples gazed and saw 
a cloud receive him out of their sight ; and as at 
the incarnation, after one angel had spoken many 
others joined in a great chorus, so now, according 
to the suggestion of the psalmist, did a multitude 
of the heavenly host — though the disciples could 
not hear them — cry out, as the ascending Christ 
went back to his throne : " Lift up your heads, O 
ye gates ; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors ; 
and the King of glory shall come in." 

Such was the part the angels took in the earthly 
career of the Son of God. And now look at the 
argument from this; for if the interest of these be- 
ings was so great in the one who made redemption 
possible, what could be more reasonable than that 
they should be deeply interested also in those who 
are the subjects of redemption ? To put the matter 
on a still broader basis : If, all through the long 



208 Guardian Angels. 

period covered by Biblical history, we find the 
angels frequently employed in executing the Divine 
purposes concerning men, and more frequently than 
otherwise in helping God to bring about the salva- 
tion of men, how can we conclude otherwise than 
that these holy creatures were expressly intended 
for such gracious work as this, and that it is in 
ministering to man that they found originally, and 
must still find, at once their highest happiness and 
their truest sphere of activity ? 



Angelic Guardianship Established. 209 

III. 
Angelic Guardianship Fully Established. 

That this guardianship of angels is taught in 
the passage we have quoted, all commentators are 
agreed. The psalmist is writing primarily, we have 
no doubt, concerning Christ; but secondarily, and 
just as surely, concerning those who exemplify the 
Christly character. "Because thou hast made the 
Most High thy habitation, therefore," he says, 
" shall no evil befall thee ; w for he shall make 
his angels thy nurses and protectors ; " for he 
shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep 
thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up 
in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a 
stone." 

A very interesting fact in regard to this passage 
from the Psalms is, that it was quoted on a memo- 
rable occasion by Satan, and that it enjoys the dis- 
tinction, so far as we know, of being the only 
passage he ever did quote. No doubt he often, 
even in this day, suggests passages for the purpose 
of giving them a false coloring. But in this case 
he distinctly quoted the passage. He deliberately 
brought it out from the Scriptural arsenal as a 



210 Guardian Angels. , 

weapon which he foolishly hoped might help him 
in his controversy with the Savior of the world. 
It was during Christ's temptation. In thought 
or in reality he and the Savior were on the pin- 
nacle of the Temple. "If thou be the Son of 
God," said Satan, "cast thyself down; for it is 
written, He shall give his angels charge concern- 
ing thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee 
up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a 
stone." 

Now, the fact of Satan quoting this passage, and 
quoting it in the way he did, proves clearly, not 
only that he understood that it guaranteed angelic 
protection under certain conditions to good people, 
but that he felt sure the Savior would indorse that 
view of it; which Christ really did; for his reply, 
in which he said, " It is written again, Thou shalt not 
tempt the Lord thy God," was not at all intended to 
deny the general construction put upon the passage, 
but was intended to show that the words quoted did 
not warrant any one in being wicked or foolish. The 
fact is, Satan had done what bad people often do 
now — he had perverted this passage of Scripture. 
He had rendered it as though it meant that a good 
man could presume upon angelic protection under all 
circumstances, regardless of what his conduct might 



Angelic Guardianship Established. 211 

be; whereas, understood correctly, the passage 
taught that such protection could be counted upon 
only while a man's conduct pleased God, only while 
his steps continued in ways of reason and right- 
eousness. 

Thus even Satan indorses this passage, and, what 
is more, he afforded the Savior an opportunity to 
indorse it, and to tell us at the same time what its 
true meaning is — a service for which, upon the 
principle of giving even the devil his due, we 
should surely be grateful to him. 

Let no one imagine, however, that this doctrine 
of angelic guardianship rests solely for its proof 
upon the single passage already emphasized. To the 
testimony of the psalmist must be added that of an 
apostle. Are not the angels — exclaims the author 
of the Epistle to the Hebrews — "Are they not all 
ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them 
who shall be heirs of salvation ?" He is empha- 
sizing the distinction between the angels and the 
Divine Son. "Unto the Son he saith, Thy throne 
O God, is for ever and ever. But of the angels 
he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his 
ministers a flame of fire;" and these latter, he af- 
firms — putting his affirmation in the form of a 
question, because in the Hebrew that is the strong- 



212 Guardian Angels. 

est form in which he could possibly put it — these 
angels, he says, are all ministering spirits, sent forth 
to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation ; 
his obvious meaning being that this ministry of 
angels is enjoyed, not merely by those who are al- 
ready subjects of salvation, but by those also who 
are likely to become its subjects. And how natural 
it is to infer from such a passage that the angels in 
some way exert their influence upon men to bring 
them to Jesus! Indeed, why should they not? If 
they rejoice when the sinner repents, why may we 
not suppose them to be constantly working to bring 
his repentance to pass? Besides being implied in 
the passage just quoted, this view is in harmony, 
as it seems to us, with everything we know of 
these beings. It is just the work to which we 
should naturally expect their own inclinations to 
impel them; and it is precisely the work to the 
performance of which we might expect them to 
be assigned in the economy of a beneficent 
Creator. 

We are also favored with a direct allusion to 
this doctrine of the guardianship of angels by our 
Lord himself. He was emphasizing the impor- 
tance of our becoming as little children. "Whoso," 
he says, "shall receive one such little child" — a 



Angelic Guardianship Established. 213 

Christian, that is, who is as humble and lowly as a 
little child — "Whoso shall receive one such little 
child in my name, receiveth me ; but whoso shall 
offend one of these little ones, it were better for 
him that he were drowned in the depths of the 
sea." Take heed, therefore, he continues, that ye do 
not offend and that ye do not despise one of these 
little ones; "for I say unto you that in heaven 
their angels do always behold the face of my Father 
which is in heaven." 

Our Savior's purpose in this allusion is not to 
prove that there are guardian angels. He does not 
even affirm this; he assumes it; and he of neces- 
sity assumes also that those he is addressing believe 
in it, as they certainly did. Not to prove angelic 
guardianship did he employ those memorable words, 
but to show that there are different degrees in it; 
that while all Christians have a share in this holy 
ministry, yet that all do not share in it alike, and 
that of all the classes enjoying it, those whose 
guardian angels stand nearest to God in heaven are 
they who excel in this grace of humility. 

Thus our Savior's indorsement of this doctrine 
would seem to be as strong as it could possibly be 
made; for the fact that on two separate occasions 
he alluded to the subject and sanctioned it without 



214, Guardian Angels. 

argument, would seem to be conclusive that in his 
day popular belief in angelic guardianship was at 
once so strong and so essentially correct as to 
render unnecessary, not only argument, but even 
emphatic assertion of this truth. 



DociRiNE Elaborated aad Applied. 215 



IV. 
The Doctrine Elaborated and Applied. 

Now that so much light has been thrown upon 
it from other sources, let us look again at that pas- 
sage in the Psalms. " He shall give his angels charge 
over thee." Not merely shall he place thee in their 
keeping, but he shall formally and solemnly charge 
them to take care of thee. To carry out the figure 
presented to us by the psalmist — just as the anxious 
mother, when she commits her children to the care 
of the nurse for a day's outing, charges her how 
she shall deal with them, how carefully and tenderly 
she shall guard them, so may we imagine Almighty 
God calling his angels about him, and solemnly 
charging them to deal tenderly and faithfully with 
those children of his who are battling with the 
temptations of the world. 

Some hold to the idea of one angel being placed 
in special charge of each particular person. This 
idea was common in apostolic times. When Peter, 
miraculously released from prison, knocked for ad- 
mission at the dwelling in which a few of the dis- 
ciples had gathered for prayer, a young girl named 
Rhoda was sent to answer this summons, and, 



216 G uardian Angels. 

bringing word back that it was the apostle, those 
within were unanimous in the opinion that she was 
mistaken. It is not Peter, they said, it is his angel ; 
the belief evidently being, not only that each indi- 
vidual had one angel in particular to keep guard 
over him, but that this angel, should it be seen, 
would be found to resemble the person it had in 
charge. 

How much truth there is in this supposition it 
is, of course, impossible to tell. That each of us 
should have at least one angel who is specially in- 
terested in him, seems reasonable enough ; but that 
our angelic guardianship should be derived from 
one exclusively, is an idea to which we can not so 
readily assent. On the contrary, it would seem to 
be at once more reasonable and more Scriptural to 
believe that we each have many angelic attendants, 
and that in times of unusual danger, whole legions 
of the heavenly host wait upon our needs. The 
mountain on which Elisha stood literally teemed 
with angelic warriors; while our Savior remarked 
in the Garden, when one of his servants would fain 
have fought for him, that, if he chose, he could pray 
to his Father, and he would send him twelve legions 
of angels. And, from these facts, is not the inference 
allowable that, as it was with Elisha and with 



Doctrine Elaborated and Applied. 217 

Christ, so, in their special times of need, we may 
reasonably expect it to be with all having an inter- 
est in the promise, " He shall give his angels charge 
over thee ?" 

Let it be noted, too, that these guardian angels 
are to bear us up in their hands. Spite of the fact 
that poets and painters have combined to equip them 
with such appliances, it is not at all certain that angels 
are endowed universally with wings. Nor can we 
conceive that they need such attachments. We can 
not, of course, speak with absolute certainty upon 
this point; but the angels, we must remember, are 
spirits; and though we do not know fully what a 
spirit is, we do know that it is not a material sub- 
stance, subject, like the body of a bird, to the law of 
gravitation. But whether the angels have wings or 
not — whether they need them or not — we are posi- 
tively assured that they do possess hands, and the 
psalmist apprises us, in the passage we are consider- 
ing, of the gracious use to which these hands are 
put for the benefit of mankind. " They shall bear 
thee up in their hands." O, blessed thought ! We 
may never have known consciously when those 
hands celestial touched us; but they have touched 
us many a time, and we have unquestionably been 
blessed thereby. 



218 Guardian Angels. 

A peculiar thrill results from the touch of some 
hands. That dying soldier knew the touch of his 
mother's hand, though he could not see her, and had 
not been apprised of her arrival. Somehow the 
touch sent a familiar sensation through his soul, and 
he said: " That was the touch of my mother's hand." 
The touches of these angel hands, we can not recog- 
nize so readily ; but is it not supposable that some of 
our best feelings have resulted from such contact? 
When we felt so ready to forgive that enemy — per- 
haps it was an angel hand that touched us then. 
When we broke down so utterly as we thought 
how hard we had been — perhaps some good angel 
touched us then. When that unusual thrill of re- 
ligious ecstasy went through our spirit — who knows 
but that angelic hands had something to do in 
evoking that? When we realized such an unusual 
influx of spiritual strength — then again may an 
angePs hand have touched us; for granting that 
these angels are, indeed, all ministering spirits, sent 
forth to minister to those who are heirs of salvation, 
who shall put a limit to the use God may make of 
them in communicating grace to our souls? 

All a matter of imagination, does some one say ? 
But we reply : That these angel hands do touch us 
is not a matter of imagination in any sense. It is a 



Doctrine Elaborated and Applied. 219 

matter of fact. We are distinctly told that God 
himself gives the angels permission to touch us; 
that, in fact, he charges them to do so. Nor is this 
all. Not only do they touch us, but they hold us 
in a firm grasp; they lift us; they bear us up — up 
above the dangers which threaten us. They even 
lift us above trivial dangers. "They shall bear thee 
up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a 
stone ;" the idea being that to which we have already 
referred — that of a nurse carrying the child over a 
pathway in which are obstructions which might 
wound its tender feet, or cause its infant steps to 
stumble. This, we repeat, is not a matter of im- 
agination ; it is a fact of revelation. That much 
God has made known to us. 



220 Guardian Angels. 



V. 

Some Interesting Speculations. 

We have now reached a point at which certainty 
must give way to conjecture; necessarily so; for 
how these angels minister to us, how they keep us, 
how they lift us, and what the precise results are, — 
these are matters with reference to which God has 
studiously withheld information from us; and our 
contention is that every devout person has, in this 
fact, an implied warrant from the Almighty to go 
forward and think out these details to his own 
satisfaction — to take the rough outline of an- 
gelic guardianship which the Divine hands have 
sketched for us, and, so long as he shall indulge 
in no fancies that are unscriptural or unreasonable, 
to fill out and color up the picture as he may please. 

Some hold that there are cases in which the 
angels, acting as God's ministers, ward off sickness. 
We can not say that we believe this; nor do we 
wholly disbelieve it. Such an idea is neither im- 
possible nor irreverent. Some think our premoni- 
tions are angel whispers. And why not? If the 
angels warned people of coming danger in olden 
times, why not in these times? It has always been 



Interesting Speculations. 221 

a popular idea with devout people that the angels 
are particularly active wheu the curtains of night 
have fallen, and that they keep special guard over 
the innocent during the unconscious hours of sleep. 
From a mother's lips we imbibe this notion. 

" Hush, my babe, lie still and slumber; 
Holy angels guard thy bed." 

And that which is thus suggested to us in this 
sweetest lullaby of childhood, we may properly carry 
with us all through life ; for though the Bible does 
not distinctly teach this truth, the supposition is quite 
in harmony with Biblical teaching, and is as reason- 
able as it is comforting. 

Doubtless, though, the chief service rendered us 
bv the angels has reference to our soul-needs, and 
within this realm one may speak with more confi- 
dence. That these good spirits fight many a fierce 
battle to protect us from evil spirits, is one of the 
most natural suppositions in the world. It is but 
natural to suppose, too, that they help us in times 
of severe temptation. Did they not perform a serv- 
ice like this for Christ? and if for the Master, why 
not for his followers? We may well suppose, 
moreover, that they render kindly attention in our 
times of trial ; that they whisper hope in bereave- 
ment and distill comfort into our souls when we 



222 Guardian Angels. 

are ready to despair. It is popularly supposed, too, 
that they are not without influence in bringing hu- 
man souls to decision in favor of Christ, and that 
afterwards they are employed in carrying to heaven 
the tidings of that decision. And when it is re- 
membered that Christ himself represents them as 
being deeply interested in returning and repentant 
ones, and that thousands upon thousands have 
yielded to Christ under the influence of that blessed 
refrain, so often sung in revival meetings, — ■ 
" There are angels hovering 'round, 

To carry the tidings home 
To the New Jerusalem," — 

remembering these, things, how can we help believ- 
ing that the angels do indeed have a part in this 
gracious work of bringing human souls to decision, 
and that they may indeed literally "hover around" 
to note such occurrences, and in some way to com- 
municate the intelligence of such events to angels 
assembled elsewhere ? Thus imagination may fill 
up this picture with much that is agreeable, and 
with very much which, because it is in harmony 
with Scripture and is sanctioned by reason, is en- 
tirely probable and eminently beneficial. 

One thing Ave hold to be not probable merely, 
but almost an absolute certainty, and that is, that 



Interesting Speculations. 223 

when good people die, the angels in some way take 
charge of their spirits. That this was done in one 
case there can be no doubt; for our Savior himself 
tells us that " the beggar also died, and was carried 
by the angels into Abraham's bosom." And if in 
that instance, why not in all others ? If these angels 
are our guardians in life, how natural it would seem 
that they should exercise special guardianship over 
us in the last great crisis of life ! Is it not quite 
reasonable to suppose that these nursing angels have 
the same charge given to them as have those nurses 
to whom the anxious mother commits her cherished 
ones for a day's outing, and that it is understood on 
the part of both nurse and parent that the chief 
point of concern is to get the children safely home 
by the time the day shall decline and the shad- 
ows begin to fall? Thus, our friends who in the 
dying hour have told us that the angels had come 
for them, may not have been mistaken after all ; for 
probably the angels did come for them. Who shall 
say, moreover, that the veil of flesh might not have 
become so ephemeral by that time as to make it 
possible for such persons to really see these angelic 
attendants? Ah ! there maybe fewer illusions in the 
death-chamber than our intense materialism has led 

us to suppose ! 

15 



224 Guardian Angels. 



VI. 
Practical Lessons. 

We draw now a few lessons from this subject. 
The first is a lesson of service. Since the angels 
are our guardians, let us be the guardians of others. 
Since they, although so high, so pure, so wise, stoop 
to be the companions of lowly human creatures, let 
us, in emulation of their example, be willing to reach 
down toward those who are lower than we are, and let 
our life-work be found in the rescue of the perishing. 

The next is a lesson of wholesome admonition. 
It is a common saying that, however secret our sin- 
ning may be, we can not hide it from God. Here, 
however, is another idea, and that is, that often when 
men do not see us, and when we think no eye but 
that of a forbearing Deity is upon us, there are, in 
fact, other eyes that are cognizant of what we are 
doing — the pure and penetrating eyes of these 
guardian angels. Let us think of this, and let the 
near presence and the scrutinizing gaze of these 
angelic attendants be at once a restraint upon us 
when we would do wrong, and a continual incentive 
to the doing of that which shall be pure and noble. 

The next lesson is one of encouragement. If 



Practical Lessons. 225 

good angels are on our side, then have we more 
friends than we have been accustomed to imagine. 
Alone we never are. It is questionable, indeed, if 
we are ever, as the sweet phrase puts it, ." alone 
with God ;" for we may well suppose that, whenever 
God is with us, some angels are near by. The man 
who said, " One. and God make a majority," may 
have spoken more wisely even than he knew. Per- 
haps this immortal saying is justified not only by 
what the final outcome is sure to be, but by the facts 
of the present situation. Perhaps such a man is in 
the majority literally ; for is it not reasonable to 
assume that every reformer who has God on his 
side, will also have with him all those spirits who 
have been sent forth to help good people bring this 
lost world back to righteousness? Thus, as one of 
the poets has said.' 

" Happy he whose inward ear 
Angels' comfortings can hear 

O'er the rabble's laughter; 
And while hatred's fagots burn, 
Glimpses through the smoke discern 

Of the good hereafter. 

Knowing this, that never yet 
Share of truth was vainly set 

In the world's wide fallow ; 
After hands shall sow the seed, 
After hands, from hill and mead, 

Reap the harvests yellow," 



VIII. 

Fallen angels. 

WHAT IS THEIR INFLUENCE UPON MANKIND? 



" For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but 
against the principalities, against the powers, against the 
world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of 
wickedness in the heavenly places. 

—Revised Version, Eph. vi, 12. 



VIII. 

FALLEN ANGELS. 
What is their Influence upon Mankind? 

ONE of the most interesting of the stories writ- 
ten by Charles Dickens is a short Christmas 
tale entitled " The Battle of Life." The scene is 
laid on one of the battle-grounds of Old England, 
in a district where, for years, the soil was made 
richer by the blood that had been spilt upon it, and 
the plowman would often bring to the surface 
some death-dealing missile. One of the characters 
in this story was an old man of a decidedly cynical 
turn. Having himself lived a smooth and com- 
paratively uneventful life, his pet idea was that 
life must be smooth and uneventful universally, and 
that the great inward struggles of which some spoke 
were largely, if not wholly, things of the imagina- 
tion. He was wonderfully well versed in the his- 
tory of the conflict which had raged a generation 
before on the peaceful scene where he now lived, 
and he had a penchant for referring to it. But 

the notion that conflicts of equal significance to 

229 



230 Fallen Angels. 

that were constantly going on in the mental and 
moral realm, was an idea at which he only laughed. 
It was to convince this old cynic, and others 
sharing his views, how utterly they were mis- 
taken, that this story was written. It is a love- 
story, of course, but is not at all to be underrated 
on that account; for while the human heart re- 
mains what it is, love-stories will always be pop- 
ular, and will continue to furnish an impressive 
method of teaching truth. 

Two innocent girls fall in love with the same 
man — two sisters. The idea makes us smile when 
it is first presented, but in sympathetic natures the 
smile soon gives place to tears ; for as we follow 
the struggles of one of these sisters to give up her 
heart's idol, and to keep the other sister from know- 
ing or even suspecting that she ever loved him, we 
can not help feeling — as the old man, the cynical 
old father, is made to feel, aud to finally acknowl- 
edge — that there are indeed inward conflicts far ex- 
ceeding in intensity those in which armed soldiers 
contend on fields of blood, and involving moral 
heroism, compared to which that shown by those 
who face death at the cannon's mouth is scarcely 
worth considering. 

Very similar to Dickens's object in this deeply 



Their Influence Upon Mankind. 231 

interesting Christmas tale is that of the apostle in 
the passage heading this chapter. He also presents 
life as a battle. His ideas, however, are more ex- 
alted than those of the novelist ; for to him life is 
not merely a fierce conflict within the charmed 
realm of the affections, but it is a struggle between 
good and evil in moral conduct — a battle of the hu- 
man soul to overcome the forces of wickedness sur- 
rounding it. He presents, moreover, a phase of 
this conflict which is seldom considered. He brings 
into view for a moment enemies which are usually 
invisible. Some aspects of this conflict are self- 
evident. We do not need to be reminded that 
within us good principles are contending for su- 
premacy with the bad — for this is a matter of uni- 
versal consciousness — nor that on every hand out- 
side bad people are seeking to corrupt us and bad 
causes to enlist us in their advocacy or support; 
for we know unmistakably that such a conflict as 
this is going on from what we see and feel every 
day we live. The question is, however, whether 
this is the full extent of our opposition; whether 
there are not other foes pitted against the human 
soul — foes which lurk in ambush, and which, be- 
cause they are unseen, are on that account the more 
to be dreaded. Certainly if there be such foes we 



232 Fallen Angels, 

ought to be informed of the fact, and we ought to 
be apprised, also, how to meet and resist them. And 
this evidently is Paul's feeling on this subject; for 
in the passage before us, not only does he assure us 
that these invisible forces do actually exist, but he 
admonishes us, at the same time, of the course to 
be pursued by those who would successfully com- 
bat them. 

That which the apostle really does in this pas- 
sage is to draw aside the veil which hides the spirit- 
world from view. He performs a service similar 
to that which the scientist renders when he per- 
mits us to look through his microscope at a tum- 
bler of water. To the naked eye the water is pure, 
calm, and beautifully crystalline; but seen through 
the instrument which science provides, it is found 
to be instinct with life, every drop containing thou- 
sands of animalcules. And what that water is under 
the microscope, the air is when seen through the lens 
of Scripture, and particularly when we look at it 
through this passage from the apostle. That is, we 
find the air — that which is about us and that which 
is above us — filled with spiritual intelligences. We 
find, too, that many of these creatures are engaging 
us in battle — that they are plotting and scheming 
to effect the ruin of our immortal souls. €i For 



Their Influence Upon Mankind. 233 

our wrestling/' says the apostle, "is not merely 
against flesh and blood, but against spirits, against 
the principalities, against the powers, against the 
rulers of the world's darkness, against the spiritual 
hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." So 
reads the Revised Version ; and this expression, 
" heavenly places," means the places in the atmos- 
phere immediately above us — precisely the places 
which are referred to when the Devil is spoken of 
as the prince of the power of the air ; the idea 
being that these spiritual hosts of wickedness, with 
Satan at their head, inhabit the air — or the space, 
at least, which the air is supposed to fill — and con- 
vert it into a vast camping-ground for the warfare 
they are carrying on against human virtue. 

Not that these wicked spirits are in the air 
in their combined force at all times; nor that 
they are always opposing us in equal numbers or 
with equal ferocity; nor that there is always an 
active conflict going forward between the evil spir- 
its who are our enemies and the good spirits who 
are our guardians. On the contrary, we are led to 
believe that both these spiritual forces have their 
head-quarters. That of the good angels we know 
to be in what in Scripture is called " the third 
heaven," which means the highest heaven ; while 



234 Fallen Angels. 

that of the evil angels, we have the same authority 
for believing, is in the nether regions, " the bottom- 
less pit," as the Bible calls the place frequently. 
Unquestionably, too, is each host directed by a con- 
trolling intelligence. The good, we know, are under 
the command of God, and we know just as certainly 
that the evil spirits bow to the mandates of that 
prince of this world, that prince of the power of the 
air, Satan. "The devil and his angels" is the favor- 
ite Scripture designation of the latter; and these are 
the fallen angels whose influence upon mankind is 
to form the theme of our present chapter. 



The History of Fallen Angels. 235 



I. 

The History of Fallen Angels. 

The history of these beings the Bible gives us 
only in the barest outline. We are helped, how- 
ever, to believe what is said of them by the fact of 
our own history so closely resembling theirs. 
Originally they were pure and upright, the imme- 
diate companions of Deity, dwelling continually in 
his presence, and finding their supreme delight in 
the consciousness of his smile. How long this pris- 
tine happiness continued we do not know. And 
having no idea how many ages upon ages they ex- 
isted before man came upon the stage of being, it 
would be folly to speculate upon this subject. That 
they should have fallen from this state of exalted 
purity seems perfectly reasonable, from the fact that 
man in Eden did the same thing; and that they did 
thus fall is beyond a question. 

We are not favored with a detailed account of 
the circumstances of their fall, but the allusions to 
the event are both numerous and striking. One of 
Job's comforters refers to it, showing that at even 
so remote a period as that it was a matter of com- 
mon belief. " Shall mortal man be more just than 



236 Fallen Angels. 

God ? Behold, he put no trust in his servants, and 
his angels he charged with folly." Paul's reference 
to it not only establishes the fact, but enlightens us 
as to the cause of this fall. He is speaking of the 
qualifications of a bishop. He must not be a nov- 
ice, he tells us, " lest, being lifted up with pride, he 
fall into the condemnation of the devil." Jude 
speaks expressly of " the angels who kept not their 
first estate, but left their own habitation, and are 
now reserved in everlasting bondage unto the judg- 
ment of the great day." Here these angels are 
represented, you will observe, not only as having 
fallen, but as being without hope. Peter, more- 
over, presents the same idea in equally strong lan- 
guage, when he tells us that " God spared not the 
angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and 
delivered them into chains of darkness, to be re- 
served unto judgment." 

Equally conclusive, too, is the Savior's testi- 
mony ; for the Devil, he tells us, " abode not in the 
truth " — a plain implication that he was in the 
truth at one time, and fell from it. And in an- 
other place he intimates that he himself was a wit- 
ness to Satan's fall. I beheld him, he says — "I 
beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." And 
that when Satan fell, those also fell who are now 



The History of Fallen Angels. 237 

associated with him in evil machinations, we are 
distinctly informed in the twelfth chapter of the 
book of Revelation, where we read, beginning at 
the seventh verse : "And there was war in heaven : 
Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; 
and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed 
not; neither was their place found any more in 
heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that 
old serpent called the Devil, and Satan, which de- 
ceiveth the whole world : he was cast out into the 
earth, and his angels were cast out with him." 

Such is the Biblical account of the fall of those 
principalities and powers, those spiritual hosts of 
wickedness, who are represented by the apostle to 
be all about us in the atmosphere encircling the 
earth, and against whom, he tells us, we have to 
wrestle strenuously in the effort to be good ; and, 
as we have already remarked, the idea that these 
evil beings are indeed angels of heaven who have 
fallen from their first estate does not seem at all 
unreasonable, because we know that man is a being 
whose history is closely analogous to this. 

We can understand, too, from what we know of 
ourselves, why it is that these fallen angels are foes 
to human goodness. It is the very nature of wick- 
edness to be aggressive. Allow in your souls one 



238 Fallen Angels. 

evil propensity, and that malign influence will work 
constantly to gain complete ascendency within you. 
So when evil becomes incarnate. Did you ever 
know a really bad mau who did not seem to take 
delight in making others bad ? Not only does mis- 
ery love company, but sin loves company. Wher- 
ever it exists, it spreads, or, at least, it will make 
an effort to spread. And if this be so within the 
human sphere, as we know it is, why not within 
the sphere angelic ? Thus, that fallen angels should 
antagonize holy angels, and that, at the same time, 
they should bring to bear what influence they can 
against the virtue and happiness of mankind, is 
only in accordance with a universal law. It is 
easy for us to believe this, and the fact is perfectly 
reasonable, because it comports exactly with what 
we see and know. 

If any one should object to this view, and 
should urge that the idea of these spirits being per- 
mitted to work in this way for human destruction 
is inconsistent with the goodness of God, we meet 
this objection by asking a single question. We ask 
the objector if it is not a fact that there are exactly 
that kind of spirits in the flesh ? It has been ob- 
served by an eminent divine that " society is knee- 
deep with such men " — men who have no other 



The History of Fallen Angels. 239 

function in life than to destroy their fellow-men ; 
nor can any observant person doubt the substan- 
tial correctness of this statement. And when it is 
known that God allows such beings their full lib- 
erty in human form, how is it possible to conceive 
of any principle of his government which would 
make it inconsistent for him to allow equal liberty 
to the same class of beings in angelic form? Not 
only is there no presumption against this, but, in 
reasoning from analogy, all the presumptions favor 
it ; besides which, it is emphatically taught in Scrip- 
ture, and that not by Paul alone, but by other in- 
spired writers. 

16 



240 Fallen Angels. 



II. 

Occupation and Probable Influence of 
Fallen Spirits. 

To determine precisely the influence, of these 
fallen angels upon human beings — the various ways 
and the various degrees in which they affect us for 
evil — is not so easy as to determine either what 
their present location is or what their state was 
before they fell. In general terms, however, it 
may be confidently affirmed that the Devil is the 
universal and everlasting tempter, a being whose 
constant effort, everywhere and at all times, is to 
entice men into sin. He began this work in Eden ; 
he has continued it without intermission to the 
present time, and according to the Scriptures he will 
remain in this calling until the day of judgment, 
when, with no further power to hurt or destroy the 
good, he will be consigned to that lake of fire — 
whatever the figure may mean — which was "pre- 
pared for the Devil and his angels." This is the 
work the chief Devil is doing; and the demons, the 
lesser devils — the rank and file of this diabolic 
host — are, of course, enlisted and constantly occu- 
pied as Satan's helpers in this work of temptation. 



Influence of Fallen Spirits. 241 

It is not certain that fallen angels are engaged 
exclusively in this work of temptation. Some hold 
that they have a power for evil within the realm of 
nature, that they work mischief through the ele- 
ments, and that they affect man injuriously, not 
only in his morals, but in his bodily and mental 
organism. And who shall say that there may not 
be some warrant in Scripture for these views? It 
is beyond a question that demons exerted an influ- 
ence over the body and mind in Christ's day, as 
well as in the time immediately following. It would 
seem as though at that period the evil spirits ob- 
tained unusual scope and power. Some have 
thought that this was owing to an abortive attempt 
on their part to rival the Divine incarnation by 
diabolic possession. Certainly they did "possess" 
human beings. From the fact, too, that out of one 
victim alone a whole legion of them were exorcised — 
a legion being six thousand — we may form an idea, 
not only of the great number of such spirits, but of 
their tendency to combine for the accomplishment 
of the ends they seek. 

That these evil spirits do not now affect human- 
ity in the extreme way in which their influence was 
shown in our Lord's time, we readily and gratefully 
admit. This, however, does not prove that their 



242 Fallen Angels. 

power within the natural realm has ceased alto- 
gether; nor does it raise any fair presumption of 
this kind, while, on the other hand, there are things 
in the New Testament which seem to suggest that a 
measure of this influence may still be retained. 
Our Savior spoke of the woman who for eighteen 
years had been subject to a certain bodily infirmity 
as one whom "Satan had bound." Paul, writing 
to the Thessalonians, said he should have gone to 
them once and again, u but Satan hindered ;" and 
the thorn in his flesh he speaks of as Satan's mes- 
senger sent to buffet him. Thus it would seem to 
be established that, in former times, devils affected 
the body not only by complete possession, but in 
several other ways; for it can not be supposed for a 
moment that Paul was in any proper sense "pos- 
sessed " of a devil, though Satan is directly charged 
with his bodily and circumstantial misfortunes. 
And if that was so, then, why may it not be so 
now? 

But this realm of conjecture we must leave for 
the sure and most profitable realm of fact. That 
the Devil and his angels have enormous power along 
moral and spiritual lines, the Scriptures make plain 
enough. Paul, speaking in Ephesians of the prince 
of the power of the air, characterizes him as " the 



Influence of Fallen Spirits. 243 

spirit that now worketh in the children of dis- 
obedience." Here this chief of evil spirits is charged 
with inciting men to rebellion against their Maker ; 
and we can readily believe that this is, indeed, one 
of his functions from the fact that he originally led 
a rebellion in heaven, and that this identical point 
of disobedience to divine authority was the point at 
which Eve was tempted and fell. In writing to 
Timothy, the same apostle warns him of "seducing 
spirits and doctrines of devils" — as though these 
spirits were the originators of false and destructive 
creeds. And when we hear the Devil quoting 
Scripture to the Savior on the pinnacle of the 
temple, and misquoting it, we are not surprised to 
learn that he has gone into theology, nor that his 
theology is calculated to lead men astray. 

This same writer, in another place, links the 
devils with idol-worship, and seems to imply that 
idol- worship is but a disguised form of devil-wor- 
ship. And when we remember that it was through 
pride that these devils originally fell, and that their 
pride took the form of a desire to usurp Divine 
prerogatives, we do not wonder at this connection 
between idol-worship and devil-worship, and are 
quite prepared to believe in it. In still another 
place Paul speaks of Satan as " tlie god of this 



244 Fallen Angels. 

world," and declares that he has " blinded the eyes 
of them which believe not, lest the light of the 
glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, 
should shine upon them." Here the power of Satan 
is represented as beiug brought to bear in hindrance 
of the success of the gospel of Christ; and when 
we bear in mind how, previously, the same power 
had been brought to bear against Christ himself, we 
can readily assent to this view. 

In the book of Job, Satan is represented as re- 
peatedly impugning Job's motives. " Doth Job serve 
God for naught?" Doubtless, too, he impels his 
emissaries to this course; and when we consider how 
many there are who are ever ready to attribute good 
deeds to base motives, who can help feeling that the 
devil and his angels must be very busy along these 
lines at the present day ? It was Satan, we are told, 
who stood up and provoked David to number 
Israel. There his work was to foster pride, to 
stimulate that ungodly passion, of which Cardinal 
Wolsey says so aptly : 

"Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition! 
By that sin fell the angels; how can man, then, 
The image of his Maker, hope to win by 't?" 

By the apostle Paul, the Devil is spoken of as 
"the enemy of all righteousness;" and in another 



Influence of Fallen Spirits. 245 

place he accuses him of perverting " the right ways 
of the Lord ;" thus suggesting that he is the author 
of religious fanaticism. The apostle John does 
not hesitate to lay all sin at his door. " Whosoever 
commiteth sin is of the Devil" — which means, 
doubtless, that the fact of a man's sinfulness shows 
him to be under the power of the Devil. Still 
more severe is our Savior in describing Satan's 
work ; for he charges him with being the author of 
all lust, of all murder, and of all lying; his words 
being, " Ye are of your father the Devil, and the 
lusts of your father ye do. He was a murderer 
from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, be- 
cause there is no truth in him. When he speaketh 
a lie he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and the 
father of it." 

Such is the sketch given us in the Bible of the 
character and work of the prince of the fallen 
angels; and, of course, what he is, they are. It is 
beyond a question, too, that in the various ways 
suggested, the rank aud file of the diabolic host afford 
constant support to their chief in his malign war- 
fare against humanity; this undoubtedly being the 
fact which the apostle seeks to emphasize when he 
assures us that our wrestling is against "spiritual 
hosts. of wickedness in the heavenly places." 



246 Fallen Angels. 



III. 

Conjectures as to their Number and 

Appearance. 

As to the number of these fallen angels, all are 
agreed that it must be great, though, of course, no 
one can give us exact information in regard to it. 
Some hold that they outnumber man — all the men 
on the face of the globe. Remembering, too, how 
small a part of God's creation our little globe is, 
this idea, we submit, is not at all an unreasonable 
one. Milton says: 

" Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth 
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep." 

And Bickersteth remarks with more particularity : 

"My dwelling had been situate beside 
The myriads of a vast metropolis ; 
But now, astonished, I beheld, and lo ! 
There were more spirits than men, more habitants 
Of the thin air than of the solid ground. 
The firmament was quick with life, as when 
The prophet's servant looked from Dothan forth 
On Syria's thronging multitudes, and saw, 
His eyes being opened at Elisha's prayer, 
The squadrons of the sky around the seer 
Encamping. Thus in numbers numberless 
The hosts of darkness and of light appeared, 
Thronging the air." 



Number and Appearance, 247 

What these fallen angels are like — how they 
would appear could we see them — we may infer, 
with tolerable certainty, from what we know of 
human beings who are .fallen. And we must bear 
in mind that bad men and women — even the most 
depraved of them — still wear the semblance of 
humanity. We must bear in mind, too, that some 
of these are not without traces of beauty, and even 
of refinement. In fact there is often no perceptible 
difference in this respect between the bad and the 
good, the saintly and the satanic. So it is among 
men; and what forbids the assumption that it is the 
same with the angels? Who shall say, moreover, 
that this view is not in harmony with revelation ; for 
does not an apostle tell us that at times Satan him- 
self appears as an angel of light? Many travelers 
have gazed in awe upon the statue of Satan at the 
entrance to the great Strasburg Cathedral, and one 
of these has told us that " those thin, worn, wasted, 
sharpened features, the so palpable contractions of a 
once noble face, the compressed, ascetic lips, the 
strange, checked smile, the clutching hand seemingly 
going through the mantle whose quivering folds 
thrill in their revelation of the dumb misery 
within — all these characteristics, no one who has 
looked at it earnestly will soon forget." 



248 Fallen Angels. 

This statue we have not seen ourselves. From 
this description, however, we can readily accept it, 
with the distinct traces of fallen greatness it so 
vividly portrays, as a representation which does no 
violence to Scripture, and which is quite in harmony 
with our preconceived notions on the subject. We 
can readily believe, too, what is further said touch- 
ing the appearance presented by fallen angels, by 
the poet whom we quoted as to the probable number 
of these malign spirits. Alluding to the war between 
a ,the hosts of darkness and of light," he tells us — 

"They were not ranged for fight, 
But mingled host with host, angels with men ; 
Nor was it easy to discern the lost 
From the elect. There were no horned fiends, 
As some have fabled, no gaunt skeletons 
Of naked horror ; but the fallen wore, 
Even as the holy angels, robes of light ; 
Nor did their ruin otherwise appear 
Than in dark passions, envy, pride, and hate, 
Which, like a brand upon their brow, obscured 
The picture of angelic loveliness." 



Knowledge of Their Methods. 249 



IV. 

What We Know of their Methods. 

Regarding the methods by which their evil work 
is carried on, we are not to suppose that they war 
with man in any open or systematic way. As the 
same writer says: 

" It was not open battle, might with might 
Contending, but uninterrupted war 
Of heavenly faithfulness and hellish craft." 

The great object of Satan is to deceive, and by 
the same purpose are his angels actuated. Paul 
tells us that the Devil is " full of subtlety and all 
mischief." Others speak of the " snares " of the 
Devil, and of .his " devices ;" while Paul tells us, 
in another place, to put on the whole armor of God 
that we may be able to stand against the " wiles" of 
the Devil. 

Evidently, therefore, this warfare of fallen 
angels against mankind is pre-eminently one of 
subtlety, craftiness, and deception. In one respect 
these lost spirits are like the skilled angler. They 
are not so foolish as to present the naked hook to 
the fish ; they always have an attractive bait upon 
it. They never invite us to commit sin; they do 



250 Fallen Angels. 

not call it by that name. Generally, if they did, 
the sensitive soul would shrink instead of yielding. 
It is some so-called good they invite us to secure — 
some cup of pleasure they would have us sip. The 
sin involved is kept studiously in the background. 
That is our lookout, not theirs. 

When the Devil tempted Eve he said nothing 
of the awful iniquity of disobeying God, nor did 
he utter a word as to the awful consequences that 
would follow. What he dwelt upon was the in- 
creased knowledge she was about to acquire, and the 
fact that after eating of the fruit of the tree of life 
she would be as the gods. And in Christ's tempta- 
tion it was the same. He was not asked to presume 
upon the Divine protection by doing that which 
would be rash and wicked. The matter was put to 
him in a different form altogether. He was asked 
to simply cast himself down from the pinnacle, that 
thus he might afford the angels the delightful fe- 
licity of saving him from the natural results of such 
an act. He was not invited by Satan to wholly 
abandon the work of redemption on which he had 
entered; he was only invited to turn aside from it 
to the doing of a little thing by which he could 
immediately secure all the kingdoms of this world 
and all the glory thereof. 



Knowledge of Their Methods. 251 

Thus did this wily fisherman bait his hook for 
the Savior of the world and for the mother of the 
race; and this same course of deception, with his 
angels to help him in it, is he pursuing to-day. 
To the young he comes; and when he would lead 
them from virtue's paths, he does not ask them to do 
that which will separate them from God; that which 
will destroy their hope of heaven ; that which will 
make their tender hearts hard and their sensitive 
consciences calloused ; that in the doing of which 
they will be 

" Sowing the seed of a maddened brain, 
Sowing the seed of a tarnished name, 
Sowing the seed of eternal shame." 

No such awful things as these are we urged to do 
by either Satan or any of his angels. To put temp- 
tation in that form would be to present the naked 
hook to the fish, a process which would only repel 
them. What they really say to these young people 
is: " Come and have a good time; come and enjoy 
yourselves ; come and see a little of life ; it will be 
quite early enough to begin to serve God when you 
have followed the pleasures of the world for a 
season." 

This reminds us, too, that one of the chief de- 
vices of Satan and his angels — a device practiced 



252 Fallen Angels. 

with equal success upon young and old — is to per- 
suade their victims to a course of procrastination. 
The story of that minister's dream is very old, but 
it is also very true in the lesson it points, and very 
appropriate to the present discussion. What he 
dreamed was, that he was in the regions of the lost, 
and that a council of fallen angels was in progress. 
The question was, How to compass the ruin of the 
greatest number of human souls. One said: "Let us 
tell men that the Bible is a fable ;" but the answer 
came, " They will never believe that." Another said : 
" Let us tell them that there is no God, no Christ, 
no heaven, no hell;" and again the answer came: 
" They will never believe that." Then arose an evil 
spirit, looking wiser than the rest, who, with sardonic 
smile, made a suggestion in which all present acqui- 
esced the moment it was stated. Said he : " To be 
sure of ruining the greatest possible number of im- 
mortal souls, let us tell men that the Bible is not a 
fable. Let us tell them that there is a God, that 
there is a Christ; that there is a heaven to gain 
and a hell to shun. And then let us assure them 
that there is plenty of time; that they need be in no 
hurry ; that to-morrow will do for the work of sal- 
vation as well as to-day." 

Only a dream — possibly not more than a day- 



Knowledge of Their Methods. 253 

dream — and yet how true to the reality ; for O, the 

multitudes whom these fallen angels have already 

ruined by this device ! * 

And thus goes on this contest in the air about us; 

a warfare of deceit and subtlety. 

" It was n ot open battle, might with might 
Contending, but uninterrupted war 
Of heavenly faithfulness with hellish craft." 

Thus goes on this war of strategy, this war of 
wholesale and fatal deception, prosecuted by fallen 
angels against fallen and dying mortals ; and when 
we remember how numerous are these hosts of 
darkness, how superior to ourselves they are in in- 
telligence, how extremely subtle and crafty — so 
crafty that at times there is danger of their deceiv- 
ing the very elect — how can we help feeling that the 
attitude of hostility we are forced to maintain against 
them is one of the most momentous facts of our 
earthly existence, and that, consequently, Paul was 
both wise and kind in calling our attention to this 
fact, and in urging us, as he does, to advance to this 
great battle " having on the whole armor of God?" 



254 Fallen Angels. 



V. 

Admonitions and Encouragements. 

We shall offer, in closing, first, a few words of 
admonition, and then a few thoughts calculated to 
encourage us. 

Because our enemies are spiritual, it necessarily 
follows that we shall need spiritual strength in our 
warfare with them. We wrestle not against flesh 
and blood. If our wrestling were against flesh 
and blood, there would perhaps be some chance 
for us to carry it on successfully by the forces in- 
hering in human nature. We wrestle, however, 
against principalities, against powers, against spirit- 
ual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places. Hence 
the absolute necessity, as all must admit, for spirit- 
ual re-enforcements. Since, too, our enemies, be- 
sides being spiritual, are exceedingly crafty, so well 
skilled in their chosen work of ruin and death, 
liable to assail us at any moment, given to attack 
their prey at unexpected times and from unex- 
pected quarters, their chief reliance being upon 
guile and deception — since this is the case, not only 
do- we need spiritual strength, but another indis- 
pensable requisite is a complete Divine equipment. 



Admonitions and Encouragements. 255 

Hence the special pertinency of that admonition 
with which the apostle introduces this subject : 
" Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and 
in the power of his might. Put on the whole 
armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against 
the wiles of the Devil. " 

For our encouragement, thoughts like these 
arise. If fallen angels are our enemies, so, and no 
less certainly, are good angels our friends and 
helpers; for it is written of every good man, and 
of every one who tries to be good, "He shall 
give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all 
thy ways." And does not Paul declare that these 
good angels are all ministering spirits, sent forth 
to minister to such as shall be heirs of salvation? 

And what is still better, we have Christ for our 
friend and helper; he of whom it is affirmed that 
he was manifested to destroy the works of the 
Devil ; he who said to Peter, " Satan hath desired 
to have thee, that he might sift thee as wheat, but 
I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not;" 
he who, in the days of his flesh, met Satan in an 
encounter which astonished the universe, and van- 
quished him upon his own ground; he of whom 
the imps of Satan inquired so piteously, whether he 

had come to torment them before their time, and 

17 



256 Fallen Angels. 

whose word of command these demons instantly 
obeyed; he who, moreover, conferred so much of 
his own power upon his first disciples, that it be- 
came a matter of rejoicing in their ranks that even 
the devils were subject unto them, — he it is who, 
in their conflict with the same forces of evil, shall 
surely be the helper of his tempted followers at the 
present day, and whose distinct promise is that 
with every temptation he will make a way for* their 
escape. 

We referred elsewhere to the difficulty some had 
in reconciling the existence of these fallen angels, 
and their active hostility against man, with the 
goodness of God. Here we have an answer to 
this objection; for that which abundantly justifies 
the Almighty in allowing us to be exposed to dan- 
ger from invisible and spiritual foes is the fact 
that he has provided so abundantly for our pro- 
tection — has made it gloriously possible for every 
human soul who trusts in him and puts his armor 
on, to maintain against these hosts of wickedness 
that sublime attitude of triumph at which Paul 
hints when he speaks of our "standing" against 
the wiles of the Devil, and when he says still more 
explicitly in a subsequent verse : " Wherefore take 
unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be 



Admonitions and Encouragements. 257 

able to withstand in the evil day, and having done 
all, to stand. " 

This triumph of the good amongst mankind 
over the assaults and stratagems of fallen angels is 
not only certain, but to those who follow closely 
the instructions of their all-conquering Leader it 
will be easy; for the promise is, that if we resist 
the Devil he will flee from us; and all history 
attests the truth of this assurance. Thus, as 
Charles Wesley so triumphantly says : 

" Angels our march oppose, 

Who still in strength excel, — 
Our secret, sworn, eternal foes, 

Countless, invisible ; 
From thrones of glory driven, 

By flaming vengeance hurled, 
They throng the air, and darken heaven 

And rule this lower world. 

But shall believers fear ? 

But shall believers fly, 
Or see the blood stained cross appear 

And all their powers defy ? 
By all hell's host withstood, 

We all hell's host o'erthrow, 
And, conquering them through Jesus' blood, 

We on to conquer go." 






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BEnuTIFUL PICTURES OF ENGLISH LIFE. 



UNDER THE QJJEEN ; Or, Present-day Life in England. 

BY REV. HENRY TUCKXEY. 

127110. Cloth. 2j8 pages, 90 cents. 
"With all her stately buildings, her wealth of history, her 
stores of learning, her treasures of art, and her many localities 
of world-wide beauty and renown, there is still nothing in 
Old England so deeply interesting to the American public as 
her people." — Author's Introduction. 

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
From Fublic Opinion, Washington, 2>. C. 

It is not a book of travel, or the description of public buildings or 
scenery, but a comparison of the way in which the average Englishman 
lives with the average American citizen's life. Philanthropists and 
reformers will find in it much of interest and value. It is a good book 
to be read by every one who thinks, votes, and tries to help humanity. 

From the Inter-Ocean, Chicago, 

Mr. Tuckley has a clear and graceful style, and has the faculty of 
getting hold of facts and circumstances in which the public is sure to be 
interested. His letters from London covered topics far removed from the 
beaten track of European correspondents, the intellectual treatment of 
which called for painstaking research and conscientious fair-mindedness. 

Cincinnati Times-Star. 

In running over the pages of Mr. Tuckley's book, the opinion grows 
that it is one of the best descriptions published of late concerning the 
English people of the present-day, and those who read it will have a 
thorough comprehension of our British cousins as they are. 




— ltry „ 
in the production of this book. 

Two Splendid Books for Young People. 

BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

LIFE'S GOLDEN MORNING : Its Promises and its Perils. 

I2VW. Cloth. 339 pages, go cents. 
FORWARD MARCH. Talks to Young People on Life and 
Success. 

i2ino. Cloth. 239 pages, go cents. 



CRANSTON & CURTS, Publishers, 
CINCINNATI, CHICAGO, ST. LOUIS. 



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" For Jesus' Sake." 
DEACONESSES. Biblical, Early Church, European, Amer- 
ican, with the Story of How the Work Began in the 
Chicago Training-school. For City, Home, and Foreign 
Missions, and the Chicago Deaconess Home. 

BY LUCY RIDER MEYER. 

i2mo. Cloth. 244 pages. Illustrated. 75 cents. 

No action more fully freighted with hope for humanity 
gilds the sunset glories of the Nineteenth Century than the 
re-establishment of the Order of Deaconesses in almost every 
branch of the Church universal. — Miss Frances E. Wizard, 
in Introduction. 

PRESS NOTICES. 
From Zion's Herald. 

Anybody, Methodist or otherwise, who is interested in the deacon- 
esses and their work will find this book of Mrs. Meyer's an extremely 
valuable one. The volume is thoroughly practical, and will undoubtedly 
increase the number and work of this religious order, if it can be 
so called. 

From the Northern Christian Advocate. 

This book tells the story of the work itself, and conveys, without 
telling, the story of the preparation of the volume. It is piquant, inter- 
esting, attractive. A great many nowadays want to know about the 
movement, and they may well read Lucy Rider Meyer's book. It is full 
of genuine womanly devotion, inspiration, and faith. 

From the Preacher's Magazine. 

A very full discussion of this growingly important office and feature 
in Church life and work. Also the story, sweetly told, of how the work 
began in the Chicago Training-school. . . . Familiarity with every 
aspect of the work they propose to accomplish, and the requirements of 
those devoted to this service are brought distinctly to notice by this 
volume. There was need for the work, and it meets with wonderful 
aptness that need. 

SIBYLLA. Adapted from the German. 

BY CORNELIA McFADDEN. 

i2mo. Cloth. 396 pages, go cents. 

"The night seems long, my Father; shadows rise, 

And dark across my pathway fall ; 
There is no light of dawn in Orient skies, 

And sorrow shrouds me like a pall; 
The stars of Faith and Hope so dim have grown, — 
O, rift the gloom, and send their radiance down !" 

The story illustrates the heartlessness of rationalism, and 
the sufficiency of the Christian's faith. 



CRANSTON & CURTS, Publishers, 

CINCINNATI, CHICAGO, ST. LOUIS. 



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JESUS THE MESSIAH IN PROPHECY AND FUL- 
FILLMENT. A Review and Refutation of the Negative 
Theory of Messianic Prophecy. 

BY EDWARD HARTLEY DEWART, D. D., 
Editor of "The Christian Guardian," Toronto. 

i2mo. Cloth. 256 pages, go cents. 
My only motive in writing upon this subject is the vindi- 
cation of what I firmly believe to be the Bible conception of 
prophecy and fulfillment. I have written in conscientious 
loyalty to my convictions of truth. — Extract from Author's 
Preface. 

PRESS NOTICES. 
From the Cumberland Presbyterian. 
It is a fair and faithful statement of principles and facts. We like it 
very much, and commend it to students and general readers. 

From the Methodist, Philadelphia. 

The author of this volume makes out what he aims to prove ; namely, 
that the prophecies of the Old Testament find their fulfillment in the 
history of Jesus Christ. The book is worth a careful study by all who 
desire to be settled in the Christian faith, and to be able to defend it. 

From the Journal and Messenger. 
He has with him the scholarship of the ages, except a few sporadic 
objectors, and a coterie of mutual admirers in the present half of the 
century. The book here presented is one of high value, and may be read 
with profit by even those who have the more extended works of Heng- 
steuberg, Fairbairn, and the long list of less notable names. 

BEYOND THE RUTS. Dedicated to the Young People. 

BY HILES C. PARDOE. 

Introduction by BISHOP W. F. MALLALIEU and REV. FRANCIS 

E. CLARK, D. D. 

i2mo. Cloth. 192 pages. 60 cents. 
If our 3-oung people will carefully and prayerfully read this 
book, it will inspire, uplift, and strengthen. — Bishop Malla- 
LiEU, in Introduction. 

From Bishop John H. Vincent, D. D., ZL. D. 

" Beyond the Ruts " is both bright and strong. It is adapted to young 
people, and is full of wisdom which is also adapted to the old. Mr. 
Pardoe wields a graceful and trenchant pen. 

From Chaplain C. C. McCabe. 
A splendid book is " Beyond the Ruts." 

From Jesse Botvman Young, Editor of Central Advocate. 
It is full of characteristically vivid and sententious passages. 

Front the Sunday-school Journal. 
This is an admirable book for young people, written by one who has 
a strong, sympathetic sense of their needs. 



CRANSTON & CURTS, Publishers, 
CINCINNATI, CHICAGO, ST. LOUIS. 



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JOHN WESLEY. A Study for the Times. 

BY THOMAS J. DODD, D. D. 

i2ino. Cloth. 152 pages. 60 cents. 

The little book now offered to the public is not a life of 
Wesley ; much less is it a history of the great revival of which, 
for more than half a century, he was the central figure. It is 
to certain features only of the great man's work and character 
that the author would direct attention ; features which, though 
not made specially prominent by biographers, are yet the real 
elements of his greatness and the true sources of the power 
which he wielded. — Extract from Preface. 

PR6SS NOTICES. 

From Zlon'.s Herald. 

For its special aim this is the best book on Wesley which we have 
seen. It is not a biography, but a close and clear study of the great 
founder of Methodism as a man, a preacher, a reformer, and a champion 
of freedom. It photographs Wesley's mind most accurately and ex- 
cellently. 

From the Preachers' Magazine. 

The grandeur of his (Wesley's) stately and saintly character shines 
with added luster by the touch of the author's delineations. As man, 
preacher, reformer, and champion of freedom, he stands resplendent in 
glory. A sound and inspiring book. 

From the Methodist Recorder. 

The syle is fresh and vigorous. As a powerful presentation of the 
forces that entered into Wesley's character it is doubtful whether this 
work has a superior. Every admirer of Wesley should read it. 

THE MOTHEB OF THE WESLEYS. A Biography. 

BY REV. JOHN KIRKE. 

1 21110. Cloth. 3Q8 pages, go cents. 

" She was an admirable zvoman, of highly improved mind, 
and of a strong and masculine understanding ; an obedient 
wife; an exemplary mother; a fervent Christian." — Southey. 

Far more interesting than romance to every sound mind is 
the veritable history of the Epworth Rectory, with its ghostly 
visitants, its sad struggles with poverty, its destructive and 
almost fatal fires, its fears, its devotions, its discipline, its 
genial father, its saintly mother, its extraordinary sons, and its 
gifted daughters. Mr. Kirke's volume will be welcomed and 
read by all to whom the character of a model Christian wife 
and mother is a subject of interest. — Bishop Wii<ey, in American 
Editor's Preface. 

CRANSTON & CURTS, Publishers, 
CINCINNATI, CHICAGO, ST. LOUIS. 






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